Chicago magazine may 2017

100-YEAR-OLD CHICAGOANS TELL Is Trump Good for Rahm? // Jesse White

THEIR STORIES Essayist Sam Irby

MAY 2017

Rib eye and brioche doughnut at Smyth (Try them together!

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The delish shima aji, also at Smyth (No. 3 on our list)

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VOLUME 66

NUMBER 5

80 BEST NEW RESTAURANTS

Wagyu at Oriole

ON THE COVER AND ABOVE Photography Jeff Marini Styling Johanna Lowe

Ultrahaute tasting menus in dressed-down environs. Veggiecentric dining in the heart of a red-meat district. A food court stall transformed into an after-hours Korean feast. As this year’s list of top openings proves, with great risk can come even greater reward.

BY JEFF RUBY

Plus Four hotshot servers ÂŁ * (Â’Ĺ?, ))%#(! " .- /* ÂŁ

Features 94 THE WORLD’S LOUDEST INNER MONOLOGUE Queen of the confessional, Samantha Irby has written about pooping her pants and getting hit on by homeless men. Her readers can’t seem to get enough.

BY CARRIE SCHEDLER

98 HOW TO GET 3,000 POUNDS OF BEEF JERKY FROM RENO TO SEATTLE And other things I learned about logistics, the booming Chicago business that you’ve probably never heard of but can’t live without.

BY MICHAEL LENEHAN

104 ARE YOU WORTHY OF THIS MAN’S COFFEE? For Chris Chacko, the most soughtafter roaster on Chicago’s dining scene, brewing the perfect cup is a sacred gastronomic quest—one not everyone is invited to join.

BY CARRIE SCHEDLER

110 FACES OF A CENTURY The hands of 105-year-old former tailor Othon Guasso

PHOTOGRAPH BY SANDRO

They have lived through the 1919 race riot, the Capone era, and seven Cubs trips to the World Series. Meet these Chicago-area centenarians.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SANDRO

BREATHLESS

Summer is a moment away

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DEPARTMENTS THE 312

TABLE

25 Politics

65 Brunch

Four ways to fuel your weekend 68 In the Kitchen

Mary Nguyen Aregoni’s oh-soversatile nuoc cham

28 Business

What’s the deal with Bow Truss?

30 5 Things

68 Penny’s New Fave

Chicago’s Picasso

Garlic beignets at Lowcountry

30 City Life

City clubs scramble to stay relevant

70 Mead

The newest oldest drink around

32 Real Estate

Hot Bucktown property

72 High Tea

Bakewell Bakery raises the bar on a grand tradition

32 Technology

Decoding tech job titles

72 Budget Pick

The Polenta Bar: The name says it all

34 Environment

The Chicago River ! .- Ĺ?) .#(! ! , (-

74 The Hot List

10 places everyone’s talking about

37 Field Guide

Uptown 40 Urbanist

Rod O’Connor learns to be a voice-over guy

GO 119 68 Things to Do This Month

May’s best theater, art, dance, music, street festivals, and more, as picked

by Chicago’s culture critics

CULTURE 43 Art

Painter Candida ĂŒ&0 , 4 Ĺ?( &&3 gets her due 46 Museums

ĂŒ' ,# ‹- Ĺ?,-. writers museum

ETC. 18 Editor’s Note

Susanna Homan on Chicago’s centenarians

48 (Ĺ?/ ( -

W. Kamau Bell on the forces that made him funny

20 Inside Peek

The making of this issue

50 Design

Products that favor form over function

22 Talk to Us

Your feedback

52 Trend

Men’s fragrances

148 Back Room

Jesse White on President Lincoln and parachuting

54 Tastemaker

Choreographer Joshua Blake Carter 10

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54

Joshua Blake Carter

70

Wild Blosson Meadery

PHOTOGRAPHY: (MEAD) JEFF MARINI; (CARTER) PETYA SHALAMANOVA

Why defying Trump is good politics for the mayor

©2017 Goose Island Beer Co., Goose IPA®, India Pale Ale, Chicago, IL | Enjoy responsibly.

ON CHICAGOMAG.COM

Deep red indicates areas with high character scores; blue denotes low character.

The perfect time to change the sheets.

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Which Chicago Neighborhoods Have the Most “Character�?

It’s a hard-to-peg descriptor that’s mostly in the eye of the beholder, but that didn’t stop the Atlas of ReUrbanism, a project from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, from trying. Its “Character Score� grades 200-by200-meter squares of cities on three criteria: median age of buildings, diversity of building age, and size of buildings and parcels.

Sound arbitrary? Not quite. Urbanists generally agree that areas of high “character� (mixed-use, moderately dense spaces with more buildings on small lots) support a healthy urban fabric. Those areas are more often found in neighborhoods just outside downtown than in the city’s core or outlying areas. —WHET MOSER Read more at chicagomag.com/character.

ON YOUR TABLET

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Ç?Ǚǜ ǗǞǚ Ç?ǘǜǕ

Ç?Ǚǜ ǙǙǖ ǕǞǛǞ

Print subscribers can download the magazine’s editions for iPad and Android devices free. Get them at chicagomag.com/ipad and chicagomag.com/android.

0%,- "!0&!"Ç˝ ,* VIDEO Chicago journalist Richard Cahan boarded a cross-country train to take the pulse of Trumpera America. Watch at chicagomag.com /crosscountry.

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SOCIAL MEDIA

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Follow Chicago at facebook.com /chicagomagazine, twitter.com/chicagomag, and instagram.com/chicagomag.

PHOTOGRAPHY: (MAP) COURTESY OF THE ATLAS OF REURBANISM; (TRAIN) RICHARD CAHAN

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Natio nal Park – Sout h Unit Wind Cany on, Theo dore Roos evelt

Josh Duhamel

UNReHEArSED North Dakota native Josh Duhamel and his son, Axl, have something in common with President Theodore Roosevelt: a love for the Badlands. After spending time here, Roosevelt was instrumental in starting the National Park System.

Discover the beauty of North Dakota’s most popular attraction, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and visit us online to find more of Josh’s favorite North Dakota places.

LegendaryND.com

A TRONC PUBLICATION

Editor in Chief and Publisher SUSANNA HOMAN

Executive Editor TERRANCE NOLAND Design Director KATHERINE BRYJA SHADY Digital Editor BETTINA CHANG Senior Writer BRYAN SMITH Features Editor DAVID MC ANINCH Dining Editor PENNY POLLACK Senior Editors ELLY FISHMAN (Culture), LAUREN WILLIAMSON

Associate Editors WHET MOSER (Digital), CARRIE SCHEDLER (Dining)

Digital Producer LYNETTE SMITH Assistant Editor MATT POLLOCK Contributing Editor JULIE DUGDALE Contributing Writers MARK BAZER, DAVID BERNSTEIN, TOM CHIARELLA, CAROL FELSENTHAL, NINA KOKOTAS HAHN, NOAH ISACKSON, ROD O’CONNOR, JEFF RUBY (Chief Dining Critic), BILL ZEHME

Contributing Dining Critics CARLY BOERS, PETER GIANOPULOS, MAGGIE HENNESSY, DENNIS RAY WHEATON

Contributing Culture Critics JASON FOUMBERG, BRITT JULIOUS, GRAHAM MEYER, CATEY SULLIVAN, LAUREN WARNECKE

Deputy Design Director EMILY JOHNSON Photo Director MARTHA WILLIAMS Associate Art Director JACQUELINE CANTU Assistant Art and Photo Editor RATKO RADOJCIC Contributing Digital Imaging Specialist ANDREW DAVIS

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PRODUCTION Prepress/Design Manager TOM KADZIELAWSKI Production Specialist JULIE SZAMLEWSKI Graphic Designers HALEIGH CASTINO, RAMZI DREESSEN

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103-year-old Luong Hoan

A CENTURY OF PROGRESS

I

n May, I’ll turn 44. I’ve entered middle age at a time when it’s culturally acceptable to freeze, fill, and pull facial skin and muscles with the hope of defying the aging process.

These days, it can be hard to tell if someone is 30 or 60.

While I won’t deny that vanity has led me to do some outlandish things (for example, using a microcurrent device at home almost daily to stimulate my jowls with electricity), I also can’t help but adore the centenarians in this month’s photo essay (page 110).

Acclaimed portrait photographer Sandro shot seven Chicagoans age 100 or older. They have lived through eras most of us have only read about— World War I, Capone’s murderous reign, the city’s embarrassing legacy of discrimination. But living past 100 is its own reward, and each person projected joy to Sandro’s camera and to assistant editor Matt Pollock, who interviewed them for their life stories and wisdom.

Read the feature and you’ll see there is no universal prescription for a lengthy life (advice ranges from cod-liver oil to daily “tastes” of cognac). But after staring at these gorgeous photos, I hope to live long enough to see a few hardearned wrinkles of my own.

SUSANNA HOMAN Editor in Chief and Publisher

18

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CONTRIBUTORS Former Reader executive editor Michael Lenehan waded into the $8 trillion business of moving freight for his story on Chicago’s logistics industry (page 98). “The last two things I’ve written were books on college basketball and a Shakespeare play, so this was new territory. But I can get curious about just about anything.�

Sandro shot seven Chicago-area centenarians for a photo essay (page 110). “I always felt like I didn’t want to live to be that old.

But when you see these beautiful people—how active they still are and how incredible their brains still work—maybe 100’s not so bad.�

PHOTOGRAPHY: (LENEHAN) ROSE LENEHAN; (SANDRO) SANDRO; (JOHNSON) MARTHA WILLIAMS

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TALK TO US

ON A WEST SIDE BOXER’S TRAGIC END

Beautifully written in contrast to a hard life [“The Ballad of Ed ‘Bad Boy’ Brown,� April].

Well done, Bryan Smith. Harsh but real. @peggykusinski on Twitter

The dialogue, the description of the barfbeige industrial tile and the gun barrels like -( % " -| ,)' ." Ĺ?,-. 1 * , !, *"-} you know that Brown doesn’t have a chance, but you can’t stop reading.

is literally part of the oligarchy, and J.B. Pritzker is just about there, too [“Clash of the Titans,� April]. I’m annoyed that the Democrats are backing these corporate tycoons and not a real progressive candidate.

I’m backing Ameya Pawar. radiofreealbemuth on Chicagomag.com

While I love both candidates, it’s sad you have to be a billionaire to run in this state now. @BryanPatrickLee on Twitter

Email from Amy Merrick

CORRECTION

‹' -# % ) Ĺ?&."3 ,# " #&&#)( #, - &#% Ă?,/ Rauner controlling this state and selling it off to their corporate buddies. Chris Kennedy

In the April feature “Where to Buy Now,â€? a photo caption incorrectly reversed the iden.#Ĺ? .#)( ) -. # ! )( ) /3 ,- . 0 Denenberg and Bradley Cole.

WHAT IS CHICAGO’S BEST CITY PARK? @ChicagoMag’s Twitter followers respond: 59%

17%

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15% Humboldt Park

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Jackson Park

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WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU Send email to letters@chicagomag.com. Write to Letters, Chicago magazine, 777 W. Chicago Ave., FC-3 Atrium, Chicago, IL 60654. Correspondents must identify themselves; names may be withheld on request. & - #( &/ . & *")( (/' , ), 0 ,#Ĺ? .#)(| Chicago may edit or condense letters.

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The

Business, politics, real estate, and city life: What you need to know this month

A BEE IN TRUMP’S BONNET Defying the president might be the lifeline our embattled mayor needs.

BY EDWARD MC CLELLAND

I PHOTOGRAPHY: (EMANUEL) JOHN J. KIM/CHICAGO TRIBUNE; (TRUMP) CAROLYN COLE/LOS ANGELES TIMES

’m no fan of Rahm Emanuel. I’ve never voted for him. In 2011, while writing a political blog for a local TV station, I gave him the nickname Mayor 1%, which later appeared on protesters’ buttons and the cover of a scathing biography. But now that Chicago is under attack by Donald Trump, who loves to portray it as the poster city for urban dysfunction, I’m glad Emanuel is mayor.

Why? Because he’s equipped to fight for us. All the qualities that make him insufferable to so many—his arrogance, his contempt for critics, his willingness to jettison any principle that might interfere with political advantage—are virtues in a battle against a president who is, arguably, cut from the same cloth. To use a Chicago term, Emanuel may be a jagoff, but he’s our jagoff.

One of Emanuel’s mottoes is “Never let a crisis go to waste”—and he shouldn’t with this one. It’s in his own self-interest. For a politician whose reputation is in tatters following the Laquan McDonald scandal, rebranding himself as an anti-Trump warrior offers a way out: an opportunity to win over skeptical progressives. It might

I LLU S TR ATION BY K A S S COPE L A N D

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THE 312

QUIZ! CAN YOU SPOT THE FAKE TWEETS?

BY JUSTIN SHADY

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1

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump â&#x20AC;˘ 30 July 2014

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Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump â&#x20AC;˘ 5 May 2015

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Donald J. Trump

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Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump â&#x20AC;˘ 22 Feb 2016

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Donald J. Trump

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions indicated that the Department of Justice would not pursue an Obama administration consent decree ordering Chicago to reform racially discriminatory police practices, Emanuel promised to do it anywayâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a necessary step in regaining trust after the McDonald shooting.

But where can Emanuel go from here? Thomas C. Bowen, a public affairs adviser at the political consulting ďŹ rm Mac Strategies Group and a former Emanuel aide, says Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leadership will continue to have trickle-down effects for Chicago that the mayor will have to confront. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve seen immigration, jobs, and criminal justice,â&#x20AC;? Bowen says, â&#x20AC;&#x153;but thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just the beginning.â&#x20AC;?

Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proposed 2017 budget calls for eliminating $6 billion from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, $72 million of which was earmarked for Chicago to build affordable housing, among other things.

Plus, the proposed $2.6 billion slash to the Environmental Protection Agency would wipe out the bipartisan Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. Emanuel has already denounced the cuts as threats to Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s future. But if the

budget that passes in any way resembles the one proposed, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have to attack Trump with more than a sharp tongue to prove to Chicagoans that these truly are his priorities.

As a pragmatist with roots in the Democratic Leadership Council of the 1990s, Emanuel has been out of step with the wave of progressive big-city mayors elected in this decade. Being seen as Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s No. 1 urban adversary could win him points not just locally but nationally with a Democratic Party that has become more liberal, even as heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s clung to the center. (Remember, it was Toni Preckwinkle, not Emanuel, seated next to Bill Clinton at the last Democratic National Convention.)

The mayor likely wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t ďŹ ght Trump on everything, but if he doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bend on big issues heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s already staked outâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;immigration and police reformâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll vote for him in two years. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll even start calling him Mayor 88%, since he stood up for the majority of Chicagoans who voted against the president. As a crass political calculation, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s better for Emanuelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reelection prospects that Trump won.

Every hero needs an antagonist, and our mayor has found his. O

PHOTOGRAPH: PATRICK T. FALLON/LOS ANGELES TIMES

FAKE: 2, 3, 6

be his only chance, come the 2019 election, to ward off another left-wing challenger like Chuy Garcia (or maybe even Garcia himself, who forced a humiliating runoff last time). And it gives Emanuel a shot at something that not long ago seemed unthinkable: being a genuinely popular mayor, not just a leader whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tolerated because heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s got enough chutzpah to run this town.

The enmity between Trump and Chicago is mutual, of course. Trump won just 12 percent of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vote, one of his worst showings in the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 10 largest cities. Whites are a minority in Chicago, and its foreign-born population is around double the national average. For many Chicagoans, Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s isolationist, ethno-nationalist vision for America is inimical to their way of life.

So the resistance is in place. The question is, Does Emanuel want to lead it?

Democrats who call for total war against Trump are disappointed that the mayor told party activists to â&#x20AC;&#x153;take a chill pillâ&#x20AC;? and pick their battles against the president because Democrats are unlikely to win control of Congress in 2018. As the engineer of the Demsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; last congressional takeover in 2006, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s probably correct that such a power swing isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t coming to D.C. anytime soon. That just puts more pressure on big-city mayors to step up.

Emanuel will have to move left if he wants to position himself squarely against Trump. So far, he seems to understand this: Shortly after Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s election, the mayor promised that Chicago â&#x20AC;&#x153;will always be a sanctuary cityâ&#x20AC;?; Trump then threatened to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities. If Emanuel caves, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll outrage Latinos and Chicagoans who interact with immigrants daily, as well as hand his opponents a deďŹ ning issue on which to attack him in the next campaign.

Then thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the gun problem. Trump ran as a law-and-order candidate, which hit home particularly hard in Chicago; heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s since told ABC News that police here are being â&#x20AC;&#x153;overly politically correct.â&#x20AC;? Emanuel responded with a subtle challenge to the idea of freer police rule in minority communities, calling for Trump to send FBI, DEA, and ATF agents to ďŹ ght the gangsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;oh, and how about stronger gun control laws and money for youth mentoring? And when

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WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH …

THE BOW TRUSS BEEF Dueling lawsuits. An employee walkout. Shuttered stores.

A closer look at the chaotic coffee shop saga. BY ESTHER KANG

Reality TV star Marcus Lemonis could have bailed Bow Truss out.

How did that go sour? Lemonis, who hosts CNBC’s The Profit as a vehicle to invest in struggling small businesses in exchange for ownership stakes, pulled out of a deal to buy the coffee chain early this year. Tadros tells Chicago that Lemonis left Bow Truss hanging, holding hostage an infusion of badly needed cash while trying to change the terms of the deal at the last minute.

How did their spat escalate? In February, Tadros filed a $26 million lawsuit accusing Lemonis of fraud. Two weeks later, Lemonis countersued, claiming that Tadros lied about the company’s finances and failed to disclose upfront the extent of its debts and payroll problems. He seeks dismissal of Tadros’s suit and repayment of nearly $100,000 that he lent Bow Truss (plus interest and damages). Neither businessman is a stranger to legal tussles. Lemonis has weathered a slew of suits related to onscreen and offscreen deals gone awry, and Tadros has been sued at least 10 other times over the years—all “common business, basic contract stuff,” he says. Another Bow Truss 28

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lender and investor also have ongoing lawsuits against Tadros and his company, claiming missed payments.

Why did Bow Truss’s employees walk out? Bounced paychecks led to an organized work stoppage in January, forcing all the Chicago locations to close; 10 employees then filed a lawsuit against Tadros and the company. Their attorney, Scott Kane Stukel, says Tadros agrees that they weren’t paid on time, but the dispute is over “how deep this rabbit hole goes.”

The lawsuit alleges unpaid overtime, withheld tips, and paycheck deductions that never went to insurance premiums and retirement savings. Says Tadros: “If there are things missing, we’ll figure it out together. But no one’s running, lying, hiding; we’re just trying.” Two Bow Truss locations have since reopened, largely staffed by past employees, he says.

Has the situation been blown out of proportion? The case is a perfect storm: beloved local product, celeb investor, media interest. Still, Tadros is shocked by the hoopla: “People keep forgetting that we’re a small business. I’m being judged for things that I might not have the means to rectify as soon as [I’d like].” He admits to growing Bow Truss too fast without enough funding and partnering with the wrong investors.

The staffers’ attorney isn’t buying it: “[If I’m an employee,] I’m not interested in his self-assumed victimhood mantle. I don’t want to work for someone who’s only going to pay me if everything comes up roses on the various gambles they’re making.”

Enough with the drama—where do I get my coffee? Bow Truss is operating in River North and the Loop. And Tadros still tentatively plans to go forward with two new locations— one by City Hall and another in Lincoln Park.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: CHICAGO STAFF (PHOTOGRAPH: JULIET BARTZ/CHICAGO TRIBUNE)

How did things deteriorate to this point? It’s hard to separate the fate of the Chicago boutique roaster from that of its owner, Phil Tadros, a self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur” whose businesses include Aquanaut Brewing Company and the digital marketing firm Doejo. He founded Bow Truss Coffee Roasters in late 2011 and opened 11 locations (10 in Chicago) over the next few years, with plans for six more. The rapid expansion—coupled with a lack of funding, negative press (started by a disgruntled investor, Tadros claims), and the subsequent loss of big wholesale accounts—led to unpaid bills, missed rent, and bounced paychecks.

It’s true: The D is in the midst of an economic turnaround. Downtown has been revitalized with an ever-growing number of tech businesses, retail and entrepreneurs. A walkable downtown, and plenty of new and renovated hotel spaces add to the excitement. It’s been dubbed an up-and-coming food mecca, with nearly 100 new restaurants, breweries, distilleries and coffee shops opening in the last three years. These newcomers join the stalwart who never gave up on Detroit, and together, are orchestrating a transformation there’s just no stopping.

DISCOVER DETROIT, AMERICA’S GREAT COMEBACK CITY. Townhouse restaurant and Luke Song, owner Mr. Song Millinery.

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JOIN THE CLUB With their formal dining rooms, dress codes, and stuffy vibes, Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s historic city clubsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; bastions of membersonly schmoozingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exactly magnets for millennials. Now that the ultrachic Soho House Chicago is on the scene, the longtimers are scrambling to stay relevant. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;JUDITH CROWN

BIRTH OF THE PICASSO On the 50th anniversary of the iconic sculptureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s groundbreaking in Daley Plaza, a new book uncovers some old dirt. BY HANNAH NYHART

1Â

To woo the artist, SOM architect William Hartmann presented Pablo Picasso with a series of Chicago gifts, including a Cubs hat, a Sioux headdress, and White Sox memorabilia, writes Patricia Balton Stratton in The Chicago Picasso: A Point of Departure (Ampersand).

According to Hartmann, Picasso was grateful, but â&#x20AC;&#x153;he could not understand why Chicago named one of its teams after their stockings.â&#x20AC;?

2Â

Some Chicagoansâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;including those in Richard J. Daleyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inner circleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;were skeptical of the sculptor because of his past communist tendencies. But the mayor stood his ground, replying, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Politics we handle ourselves. Picasso is the best artist in the world and that is what we care about.â&#x20AC;?

3Â

The 50-foot-tall landmark is not an exact replica of Picassoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 41-inch maquette. To convert the prototype to a full-size sculpture that would remain stable in the wind, the architects tweaked the dimensions of certain

30

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elements and added a support piece behind the â&#x20AC;&#x153;face.â&#x20AC;? When Picasso saw the changes, he called the result â&#x20AC;&#x153;better than the original.â&#x20AC;?

4Â

The sculpture was built in a steel fabrication plant in Gary, Indiana. Because there were no precise measurements to follow, workers had to perform intricate scale-up translations. Getting them onboard took a â&#x20AC;&#x153;tremendous effort in persuading, explaining, and romanticizing the Picasso work to our people,â&#x20AC;? according to thenâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;senior design engineer Anatol Rychalski. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Everyone has the soul of an artist; some must dig to find it.â&#x20AC;?

ÂŁ University Club of Chicago A $13 million expansion will add 15,000 square feet by Labor Day, complete with casual seating clusters, community tables, and plenty of outlets for devices (read: trendy coworking space). ÂŁ The Metropolitan Club A $7 million face-lift starting in July will come with a relaxed dress code. Denim 1#&& Ĺ?( &&3 * ,'#.. #( && but the formal dining room.

More evidence that jeans are the new khakis. ÂŁ Union League Club of Chicago Upgrades worth $4 million have pepped up the restos and bars. To lure in a more health-conscious generation, menus now offer small plates as well as vegan and glutenfree options. Nothing says hip like dietary restrictions.

5Â

Its abstract form and lack of a title made the piece fodder for speculation. Was it a baboon? An Afghan hound? Picassoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wife? A former muse? Not everyone was a fan. Chicago art critic Franz Schulze labeled it â&#x20AC;&#x153;a monument to Picasso rather than a monument by Picasso.â&#x20AC;?

Has his opinion changed? Schulze told Stratton he still considers it â&#x20AC;&#x153;a third-rate Picasso.â&#x20AC;?

A chill University Club?

PHOTOGRAPH: ANTONIO PEREZ/CHICAGO TRIBUNE | RENDERING: COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY CLUB OF CHICAGO

FIVE THINGS

DI COVER CHICAGO ICONS

Legends are revealed on the Chicago Architecture Foundation River Cruise aboard Chicago’s First Lady Cruises.

Unscripted. Unrivaled. Unforgettable. For more information, visit ChicagoIcons.com DEPARTING FROM MICHIGAN AVENUE & WAC KER DRIVE ON CHICAGO’S RIVERWALK 112 E. WACKER DRIVE

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SQUARE FEET

HOT MOD Take a tour of this upgraded modern masterpieceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the priciest on the Bucktown market. BY MOIRA LAWLER

1

D

Curb appeal (1) Local vegetation just wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do, so trees and bushesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;European hornbeam, Royal Purple smoke bush, Regent serviceberries, and moreâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;were imported to complement the homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s warm, smoky palette and geometric architecture.

Tricked out with tech Comfy on the couch? No, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get up.

Adjust the temp from where you sit with the Nest phone app, and change the tunes streaming from the built-in Sonos and Sonance speakers or draw the custom drapes to blackout level with the push of a remote button. As smart homes go, consider this one Ivy League.

Vintage collection (2) The 10-by-10-foot wine cellar, which holds /* .) r}vqq )..& -} ,#0 &- )( 3)/Â&#x2039; Ĺ?( #( -1 (%3 )1(.)1( restaurant. The build-out features temperature control, detailed cedar woodwork, and an island to showcase whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be uncorked next.

Mix it up (3) More in the mood for a cocktail? The rustic-chic reclaimed-wood wet barâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;conveniently located in the loungy media roomâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;has a concrete countertop and plenty of shelf space against the antique mirror backsplash.

Home gym 2.0 1 1 &&Â&#x2019;.)Â&#x2019;1 && ,/ , Ĺ?)),#(! (-/, - ." . +/#*' (. ( 1 #!".- 1)(Â&#x2039;. ' ! ." Ĺ?)), #( ." '#,,),Â&#x2019;1 && 2 , #- room. Your joints will thank you, too.

Zen time (4) Retreat to an airy master bathroom that, at 286 square feet, is bigger than many bedrooms. The radiant-heat honed marble Ĺ?)),} & ! (. -#( ./ } ( 1 &%Â&#x2019;#( -")1 , */. ')-. -* - .) -" ' |

JOB DE PLUME

Chicago was recently named the top emerging . " "/ 3 ." -. Ĺ?(! Ĺ?,' Modis, so we scoured job boards to see what kind of talent is being lured. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;JUSTIN SHADY 32

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VP of People 10th Magnitude What it sounds like Being ringleader of pizza-party ( - 3- ( #(Â&#x2019;) Ĺ? ' -sage initiatives to boost morale.

What it is Dude, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re in HR: Think performance reviews, onboarding paperwork, and maybe the occasional sexual harassment video.

2

3

4

Part-Time Customer Hero SpotHero What it sounds like Zipping ,)/( &#% /* ,' ( .) Ĺ?( secret spots for drivers when Loop parking seems impossible.

What it is Gritting your teeth while pissed-off customers use you as a verbal punching bag.

Geek Squad Double Agent: Covert Computer Repair Best Buy What it sounds like Fixing home gadgets (wink) while slipping hidden mics and cameras into them. You know, for Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shadow government.

What it is Fixing Grandmaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s computer after one too many emails from that Nigerian prince.

PHOTOGRAPHY: JIM TSCHETTER

rop $3.1 million on a double-lot, 7,000-square-foot home in Bucktown, then spend $600,000 more on top-of-theline upgrades (thanks in part to Dolan Design Group), and what do you get? One heck of a dream house. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how the story goes for 1622 North Wolcott Avenue, a six-bedroom, six-and-a-half-bathroom dazzler that last sold in 2013 and is back on the market for $4.2 millionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the most expensive listing in the hot hood. Bonus: Whoever snaps it up gets to be neighbors with former White Sox manager (and noted motor mouth) Ozzie Guillen. Here, a peek inside the sleek digs.

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THE 312

SEEDS OF O CHANGE The Chicago River is going green againâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; this time for good.

Floating Structures Designed by Biomatrix Water, the #!".Â&#x2019;#( "Â&#x2019;."# % Ĺ?) .- , ' ) )#, Â&#x2DC;." Ĺ? ,)/- '# & & 3 , ) ) )(/.Â&#x2122;} 1"# " #- /)3 (.} * ,' & } ( )( / #0 .) ,. #( %#( - ) !)) . ,# } - 3- , ( #0 ,- ) )/( , # % -& 3|

f stuff thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s historically lived in the Chicago River (garbage, fecal matter â&#x20AC;Ś we wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t go on), lush plant life and thriving critters donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t top the list.

Local nonprofit Urban Rivers is on a mission to change that. Its secret weapon? Floating gardens.

The idea goes like this: Water nourishes plants, plants (and the insects they attract) feed ďŹ sh, ďŹ sh bring animals, the circle of life ďŹ&#x201A;ourishes, and a bleak waterway gets a revitalizing face-lift that woos pedestrians and kayakers.

In 2013, Urban Rivers built a 5-by-10-foot pilot garden that drew seven kinds of ďŹ sh and produced a cherry tomato harvestâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a promising start. A Kickstarter campaign has since raised nearly $30,000 to transform a half-mile stretch of river with ďŹ&#x201A;oating gardens on the east side of Goose Island by 2020.

The ďŹ rst 160-plus feet will be installed in May. Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a closer look. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;JAMISON PFEIFER Upkeep )&/(. ,- #( % 3 %- 1#&& ' #(. #( ." ! , (- ( ., % *& (. !,)1."} 1"#& -. .#)( ,3 ' , - 1#&& ) /' (. (#' & 0#-#.),-|

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Turtle Pools )' Ĺ?) .- 1#&& " 0 ")&&)1 (. ,-} &#% .#(3 & !))(-} .) .., . ./,.& -|

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CURRENT PROJECT

2020

GOAL

W. Division St.

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34

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I LLU S TR ATION BY JA SON SC H N E I DE R

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What leads to suicide?

Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no single cause. Suicide most often occurs when stressors and health issues converge to create an experience of hopelessness and despair. Depression is the most common condition associated with suicide, and it is often undiagnosed or untreated. Most people who actively manage their mental health conditions lead fulďŹ lling lives. Condition like depression, anxiety and substance use problems, especially when unaddressed, increase risk for suicide.

afspil.org

THE 312

From top: Green Mill; Demera; St. Mary of the Lake

FIELD GUIDE

UPTOWN PHOTOGRAPHY: (GREEN MILL) CHRIS SWEDA/CHICAGO TRIBUNE; (DEMERA) PATRICK E. FRASER; (ST. MARY OF THE LAKE) ANDREW A. NELLES/CHICAGO TRIBUNE

This quirky relic of bygone glamour still offers lively eateries and landmark venues with plenty of character. BY JOEL REESE

I

f Chicago’s neighborhoods could talk, once-regal Uptown might tell the best tales. The intersection of Broadway and Lawrence, for instance, used to be an entertainment epicenter anchored by several opulent theaters—the Aragon, Riviera, and Uptown—that brought in Hollywood’s biggest names. Uptown even had a film studio, and stars such as Charlie Chaplin, Bob Hope, and Gloria Swanson lived in the area. Though the oldschool glitz has faded, the streets are now lined with eclectic shops and ethnic restaurants (including some of the city’s best pho spots). Look for Uptown to perk up—dare we say, regain some of its splendor—when the CTA wraps up its massive revamp of the Wilson station later this year.

THIS MONTH Throughout May City Lit Theater’s comedy Forty-Two Stories explores the dynamics of a colorful Lake Shore Drive high-rise and its motley crew of residents. Throughout May Watch the tale of a legendary chanteuse unfold in Black Ensemble Theater’s Black Pearl: A Tribute to Josephine Baker. May 1 At Uptown Underground, the Skivvies play eclectic tunes on the cello and ukulele—in their underwear, naturally. May 10 Alt-rock heroes the Jesus and Mary Chain bring their feedback-drenched pop and shoegazing angst to the Riviera Theatre. May 19 to 20 Catch the drumming and elegant jazz of the Dave King Trio at the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge.

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CH I C AGO M AG .CO M

37

IF YOU WANT TO LIVE HERE

EAT & DRINK 11 42 Grams This relative newcomer .) Ĺ?( #(#(! " - .1) Michelin stars thanks to its Charlie Trotterâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;trained chef, Jake Bickelhaupt.

12 Baker & Nosh , Â&#x2039;- -)' % ,' ~ The always-packed indie ) -")* - ,0#(! Ĺ? %3 croissants and rich scones recently took over a former Starbucks.

SEE 1 Claude Seymour House This 12,000-squarefoot beauty takes up Ĺ?0 Â&#x201D;Ĺ?0 Â&#x201E;â&#x20AC;&#x201D;city lots and showcases classic Prairie elements such as horizontal features and ornate stained glass windows.

2 Graceland Cemetery Famous Chicagoansâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; among them Ernie Banks, Daniel Burnham, and Roger Ebertâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;are buried here. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t miss the Louis Sullivanâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;designed Getty Tomb, a designated city landmark built in 1890.

3 Margate Park Settle in with a book while the kids hit the modern playground, customdesigned with sculptures, mosaics, and interactive art. Bring Fidoâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a dog park here, too.

4 St. Mary of the Lake Church Dedicated in 1917, the Renaissance-style church 38

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is an amalgamation of three Roman cathedrals, with marbled pillars, coffered ceilings, and stunning paintings.

5 West Argyle Street This city experimentâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a â&#x20AC;&#x153;sharedâ&#x20AC;? street that gives equal preference to bikes, cars, and pedestriansâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;is still working out the kinks.

Its shops, bakeries, and Vietnamese eateries are worth a stroll anyway.

SHOP 6 Ace Fashion Trading Company Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not exactly Michigan Avenue, but if you need a scarf for less than $4 or a string of costume-caliber pearls, look no further.

7 Nearly New Bikes Come in with $100, leave with a stylinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; used bikeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; hello, summertime cruisingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been expertly repaired. Hit the Ă&#x152; Ĺ?,-.} .")/!"~ Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cash only.

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8 Notice This cute family-run shop sells locally made jewelry, gift-worthy candles, and adorable stuffed animals to rival any toy storeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s.

9 Qideas )/Â&#x2039;&& Ĺ?( 0 ,3."#(! from live bamboo to waving gold kitties (you know what we mean), plus some crazy good deals on unusual kitchenware.

10 Woolly Mammoth One manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s creepy is anotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eccentric (yet oddly cool) collection of

13 Demera Ethiopian Restaurant . * r~ , , )| rw} choose-your-own-meat )( (4 | . * s~ , * it in spongy injera bread. . * t~ -" #. )1( with Castel, an Ethiopian & ! ,| . * u~ * .| 14 Green Mill Cocktail Lounge Once frequented by Al Capone, this iconic gin joint still reels in the top jazz players in town. The martinis are expertly mixed, and the plush velvet booths are old-school swank in the best way.

15 Uptown Pho If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not feeling the pho (pronounced fuh)â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a belly-warming broth teeming with beef, scallions, cilantro, and spiceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; the banh mi is solid. But - ,#)/-&3~ . ." *")|

Get your . 2# ,'3 Ĺ?2 at Woolly Mammoth.

16 Uptown Underground You literally have to go /( ,!,)/( .) Ĺ?( ."#- )& Â&#x2019;.#' 3 Â&#x2C6;, .,). #(' (.Â&#x2030;~ cabaret, burlesque, magicians, acrobats, and more.

Population 56,400

(14% Hispanic, 52% white, 11% Asian, 20% black)

Median household income $40,700 Median home listing price $260,000 Listing of the month

1244 W. Carmen Ave.

â&#x20AC;˘ Asking price $528,000 â&#x20AC;˘ Specs 2,400 square feet, Ĺ?0 ,))'-} two bathrooms â&#x20AC;˘ Funky in a largely good way, the famed Myron Bachman House is part Quonset hut, part fading eccentricity that just needs a little love to rise again.

DID YOU KNOW?

The J. Geils Band played the last show at the now-shuttered Uptown Theatre on December 19, 1981.

NOTE Median home listing price is from January 2017.

SOURCES U.S. Census Bureau, Zillow

I LLU S TR ATION BY M IC H A E L A . H I LL

PHOTOGRAPHY: (RACCOON) JACOB WATTS; (HOUSE) COURTESY OF DAVID WONG/FIRST KEY REALTY

doll parts, taxidermied squirrels, and vintage surgical tools.

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THE 312

THE URBANIST

THE VOICE A wannabe gets a one-on-one lesson from Chicago’s man with the golden pipes. BY ROD O’CONNOR

I

recognize Dave Leffel’s booming baritone the second I walk into Bam Studios, though I can’t quite place it. Is it the earworm voice from some overplayed gameday beer commercial? Or maybe that zippy “Eat fresh!” at the close of every damn Subway spot? Regardless, it’s like hearing an old friend. Familiar.

The River North audio production house is closing up shop for the night when Leffel, one of the city’s most prolific voice actors and sound engineers, waves me into a plush recording suite. The room is soundproof, and except for a few stray staffers, the office is empty. Still, I’m nervous.

Maybe it’s because I just strolled past a Wall of Fame filled with photos of celebrities who have recorded here over the years: Will Ferrell, Mila Kunis, the actor who played the janitor on Scrubs. Only a few hours before I arrived, John Goodman was laying down some dialogue tracks for a movie project still under wraps. And as I chatted with Leffel in the hallway, I bumped into David Eigenberg, who played Miranda’s on-again, off-again love interest on Sex and the City. He had just finished recording some lines for an episode of Chicago Fire (from which you might know him as the lovable firefighter Christopher Herrmann). I mistook him for one of my old University of Illinois frat brothers. He didn’t seem amused.

I had scheduled a session at Bam because I’ve always thought I had the potential to make it as a voice-over guy—you know, the juuuuust-right offscreen narrator that commands your attention in ads and films. (The job also entails stuff like recording robocalls and museum tour scripts, but those don’t have quite the same cool factor.)

I’ve worked in advertising and know my way around radio copy, and I’ve been told by more than one person (OK, including my mom) that I have a distinct sound. (I describe it as “smoky.”) So I tapped Leffel to assess my skills.

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Stocky, with a salt-and-pepper goatee and the wiseacre smirk of a guy who probably lacked self-control in his youth, Leffel, 50, helps aspiring audio artists build their demo reels. He hands me a script and points out the reading prompt at the top: “Mature, confident, trustworthy.” I stare at the lines to a 15-second commercial for men’s vitamins and feel like I’m about to walk a tightrope without a net. Deep breath, and I let ’er rip, summoning my internal James Earl Jones: “Research suggests cell health plays a key role throughout our lives. One A Day Men’s 50-Plus is a complete multivitamin designed for men’s health concerns as we age …”

In my head, it sounds contrived and cheesy. What does Leffel think? “Well, you don’t have a lisp,” he says. Uh, thanks? He’s joking and insists my cold reading wasn’t half bad. “Let’s take it up two notches,” he says. “Give it more energy. C’mon, make it tougher!” Right.

Who knew that vitamins for middleaged dudes required such conviction?

Most of us probably don’t realize how often voice-overs influence our dayto-day lives. Whether they’re hyping movie trailers, narrating PBS docuseries (“Tonight on Frontline …”), or shilling for a certain pill (“If your erection should last more than four hours …”), they surround us, aiming to inspire us, move us, and, mostly, sell us shit. The anonymous narrators behind them, who have mastered their vocal instruments, have always fascinated me. Were they born with the talent? Or were their velvety executions honed over time?

Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when Leffel started, a voice actor could build a long career as the unseen spokesperson for a big-name household brand, like Hamburger Helper or PeptoBismol. Today, competition is fierce and companies are fickle, constantly tinkering with their advertising. “Being the ‘voice of something’ these days is harder and harder to come by,” Leffel says.

“There’s not as much loyalty anymore.”

Yet Leffel is in high demand. During our conversation, he casually bends and morphs his voice in ways that remind me of that guy in the Police Academy movies. His big break came in 1998, when he landed the campaign for a short-lived Mountain Dew–esque drink I LLU S TR ATION BY DA N PAG E

N AT I O N A L

from Coca-Cola. “It was very in-yourface,” Leffel says. Shifting to the edge of his seat, he can’t resist breaking it out: “Surge—it’s a fully loaded citrus soda with carbos. Feed the rush!”

Since then, you may have caught Leffel in your living room hawking everything from the Fiat 500X crossover SUV to Temptations cat treats. “I play my reel, and people are like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve been hearing your voice for years,’ ” he says. In a 2009 career highlight, Leffel beat out John Cusack and Thomas Haden Church for a Budweiser campaign. “I sound much cooler when I’m being a beer guy,” he says, teeing up a back-of-the-throat timbre.

It’s not always lucrative, but there’s a hefty paycheck here and there. The big money is in the residuals that kick in if a spot continues to air for a long time.

Once, Leffel did a 15-minute session to record a tagline for another Bud commercial. It was used in several ads over a couple of years. “I thought I was going in the booth for $250, and it ended up being a six-figure job,” he says. “That gig put new windows and siding on my house.”

Hmm. Come to think of it, my kitchen could use a face-lift. Bring on the scripts! During the next half hour, Leffel guides me in playing a peppy sports fan for Merkts cheese spread and channeling my burly DIY persona to pitch Craftsman cordless drills. But I don’t hit my groove till we get to an ad for big-and-tall store Destination XL and I downshift a few octaves: “Look at you.

You are more than a man in a new outfit.

You are a larger-than-life magnificent man about town. A colossal icon of style.

Are you ready to look this good? Is your wife ready? Is the world ready?” Then the close: “All the great men’s brands, waist size 38 and up. Destination XL. You’re looking good.” Stuck the landing.

Leffel sits back in his chair. “Dude, that was really good,” he says. “I felt the animation in your voice and your commitment. There’s a point where everything transcends the voice. It becomes about your ability to tell a story. A lot of people take time finding that confidence in their own skin.”

Peddling formalwear to overweight gentlemen never sounded so heroic.

Watch out, Movie Trailer Guy. I’m coming for you. O

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A new writers museum PAGE 46 W. Kamau Bell PAGE 48 Men’s fragrances PAGE 52

LOCATION: MANA CONTEMPORARY CHICAGO

CULTURE

CANDIDA’S COLORING BOOK After four decades, the conceptual painter finally gets her due. BY JASON FOUMBERG

PHOTOGRAPH BY KEVIN SERNA

Alvarez in front of her 2005 painting Mary in the Sky with Diamonds, facing the projection of another of her works

CULTURE

W

A new line of looks from Comme des Garçons features Alvarez’s paintings.

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Rainbows on My Studio Floor (2016)

A collection of about 60 works, ranging from the early 1980s to just last year, Here pulses with personal memories. “My work is chatty and full of stories,” says Alvarez. “It’s like a call-and-response.”

One of the most poignant pieces is also among the most unique: Titled Dame un Numero, the diptych features a grid of muted colors, which Alvarez says spells the name of her son, Ramon. “The structure comes from my mother, who would relate each letter in the alphabet to a number,” says Alvarez. “I’m breaking down a name into numbers, and that helps me to sort out the different colors.

It’s almost like a love letter.”

Though Alvarez, who is a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has shown her work in galleries around the globe for years, her star turn didn’t come until this year, when Comme des Garçons used several of her pieces as prints in its 2017 menswear collection. The label’s founder, Rei Kawakubo, stumbled across Alvarez’s work online. “I couldn’t imagine

something more amazing,” says Alvarez of the collaboration. “It felt like a cosmic experience.”

Terry Myers, curator of Here, says Alvarez’s breakthrough is long overdue: “Chicago hasn’t done the best job supporting women with long careers here.

People will be stunned by the range and the history [in Alvarez’s work]. She is someone who should be seen.”

Despite her fast-rising profile, Alvarez has struggled creatively of late. She’s made only a few pieces since the presidential election. One was a small canvas with “Fuck You” written in black glitter across the center. “They were the first words that came out of my mouth [the night of the election],” says Alvarez.

“I was pissed. I wanted to shake black glitter like pepper. I’m always trying to rekindle my creativity, but turbulence needs some space for reflection.”

GO Candida Alvarez: Here runs through

August 6 at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St. Free. cityofchicago.org

PHOTOGRAPHY: (PAINTING) TOM VAN EYNDE; (MODELS) COURTESY OF COMME DES GARÇONS

hen I walk into Candida Alvarez’s Pilsen studio, the latemorning sun scatters a prism of rainbow light across the floor. It’s an all-too-appropriate introduction to the painter, who herself is clad in a bright sweater and whose studio is packed with colorful canvases in various stages of completion. “Color is magic,” she says, surveying the room. “It’s a flirtation with the eyes.”

Alvarez’s unique perspective is an essential part of her work. Growing up in Brooklyn—her parents moved from Puerto Rico before she was born— Alvarez would take the stairs to the top of her apartment building just to soak in the view. “There’s something about looking out a window on the 14th floor,” she says. “It helped my eyes, my pictorial framework.”

Although Alvarez, now 62, has always had an affinity for graphic patterns—she spent much of her youth hovered over paint-by-numbers coloring books—it wasn’t until she studied color theory at Yale that she began to develop her particular style of abstraction. Influenced by a friendship with famed minimalist artist Sol LeWitt, who encouraged her to experiment with puzzles and games in her work, Alvarez started to approach the canvas in a more playful way. “Sol told me that ideas belong to whoever understands them,” she recalls. “I just love that: We don’t own ideas.”

Alvarez’s individuality is on full display in her massive new solo show, Here, at the Chicago Cultural Center.

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CULTURE

MANUSCRIPTS NO MORE The American Writers Museum packages literature for the iPhone era. BY HANNAH NYHART

H

ow do you capture 500 years of American literature in the age of e-readers?

With a museum of touchscreens, of course. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the conceit of the American Writers Museum, opening May 16 on the second floor of the building at 180 North Michigan Avenue. The first of its kind in the country, the museum showcases Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s literary past with multimedia installationsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;no yellowing manuscripts here. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not about books under glass,â&#x20AC;? says president Carey Cranston, who, along with a 54-member curatorial team including 30 professors, three book critics, and the New York Times crossword puzzle editor, helped envision the new space.

Here, five highlights.

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Lessons in Chicago history The museum boasts a room dedicated to local literary lights, with recordings

by Studs Terkel and Gwendolyn Brooks and a digital map of landmarks, including the birthplace of Ebony and Jet, the original public library network, and every bookstore within the city limits.

2

Audio tours by lit experts In the American Voices exhibit, virtual docents, including NPR book critic Maureen Corrigan and Northwestern English professor Ivy Wilson, narrate the biographies and works of 100 emblematic writers, from Abraham Lincoln to James Baldwin.

3

Sensory immersion Anchoring the museum are 100 wallmounted boxes that pull out to reveal literary ephemeraâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; items you can touch, hear, or smell.

Think: A woodsy aroma for Walden or freshbaked cookies for Julia Child.

4

Masterworks in progress See the pillars of American lit deconstructed in Anatomy of a Masterwork, an exhibit that breaks down the creation and legacy of iconic titles like â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sonnyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bluesâ&#x20AC;? and Huck Finn with digital renderings of early manuscripts, critical reviews, and close readings.

5

Rare treasures One place youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll Ĺ?( ( - ( of screens: the Writerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Room Gallery, which features a rotating collection of relics. First up?

Jack Kerouacâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 120-foot On the Road scroll. Plus, Kerouacâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s biographer, Dennis McNally, will give a lecture on May 25.

I LLU S TR ATION BY ROS E B L A KE

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CULTURE INFLUENCES

HENRY ROLLINS

THE AGITATOR

His shows were funny in a standup way, but they were also real and very political. Rollins is not beholden to the laugh in a way that keeps him from making his point or telling his story. A lot of times in standup comedy, the comics go, “I think they’ll think this is funny.” But with Rollins, he’d go, “No. I think this is funny.”

I

n his new book, The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell, the host of the CNN series United Shades of America and the podcast Politically Re-Active traces his unlikely journey from, as he puts it, “being a completely unknown comedian to being the only comedian that CNN employs on purpose.” Bell, a Lab School alum, believes in the “power of awkward conversations to initiate change.”

Here, the 44-year-old describes, only somewhat awkwardly, his formative influences.

MY MOM

I wanted to be a comedian because I liked making her laugh. She’s got a big, throaty, totally-not-embarrassed-if-other-peoplehear-it laugh, but she doesn’t laugh easily.

I did anything to get it out of her.

THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE

It’s the first film by the dudes who wrote the Airplane and Naked Gun movies. It was a series of short sketches—like Saturday Night Live, but the jokes were edgier and more adult. It felt like there were no rules.

BILL HICKS’S ALBUM RELENTLESS

Many people refer to [comedian] Bill Hicks as the ’90s-era Lenny Bruce.

He was hilarious but also passionate and biting. He was all about propaganda and dismantling propaganda, but he also had bits like what would happen if he died and his mom found his porn stash.

LIVING COLOUR’S ALBUM TIME’S UP

It’s blistering rock ’n’ roll, but from an authentically black perspective.

The third song is about how white people often try to take African American culture and leave the people behind. That idea still informs my comedy: You can be black in a space considered white and you don’t have to diminish yourself.

CHRIS ROCK: BRING THE PAIN

It was like my moon landing. In that special, he established what a Chris Rock joke is: telling truth to power, cutting through with incisive wit, saying things you don’t agree with but you laugh at anyway, and also identifying black comedy as smart comedy.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X

That book changed my life. Malcolm X was actually really funny. It makes sense: You can’t deal with that level of anger without having humor to pop the tension every now and then. It reminded me that you can take angry onstage, but you have to make sure you bring humor with it too.

PHOTOGRAPHY: (BELL) JOHN NOWAK; (ROLLINS) BRIAN VAN DER BRUG/LOS ANGELES TIMES; (ALBUM) COURTESY OF EPIC RECORDS; (BOOK) COURTESY OF BALLANTINE BOOKS

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CULTURE DESIGN

THE ART OF THE OBJECT A new collection puts a creative spin on home products. BY JASON FOUMBERG Miiko Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s incense burner invites contemplation â&#x20AC;Ś or brooding. Think snow globe, but with smoke.

Wacky beach paddle game? Nope. Turn on Amanda Yamasakiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s colorful, shadow-casting LED lamp and you have an instant disco vibe.

Ting-Yu Tsengâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bronze book holder wedges onto a ledgeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;perfect for the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thinnest lit collection.

Majenta Alcyone Strongheartâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stemless blown-glass drinking bowls )/ & - #-!/#- -Â&#x201D;(). ( Ĺ?. # 3)/Â&#x2039;0 " )( .)) ' (3| When crafting this tabletop mirror, Irem Mimaroglu pondered the question: What would time look like if it were an object? (Apparently, a frozen banana leaf.)

Yuling Yu taps into viewersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; schadenfreude with this blownglass lamp inspired by a skirt caught in a taxi door.

Humiliation has never been quite so chic.

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PHOTOGRAPHY: JONATHAN ALLEN FOR THE SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

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ho says form follows function? In Whatnot, a collection by students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, form is king. For the designers, all of whom are 30 or under, creating household objects is high art. This yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s group teamed up with West Supply, a foundry in Hermosa that specializes in blown glass and bronze, to churn out a series of 15 boldâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;if not bizarreâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;pieces. The works debuted during the prestigious Milan Design Week in April.

Starting in mid-May, they will be on view at SAICâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s LeRoy Neiman Center and sold as limited editions for prices ranging between $365 and $2,000. Here, six objects from the upcoming show.

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CULTURE

Six outdoorsy men’s fragrances for spring

BY JESSICA MOAZAMI

WOODY SPICE

YVES SAINT LAURENT Tuxedo eau de parfum, $250, neimanmarcus.com

WOODY MUSK

NARCISO RODRIGUEZ For Him Bleu Noir eau de toilette, $89, sephora.com

WOODY ORIENTAL

VALENTINO Uomo Intense eau de parfum, $102, Nordstrom, 55 E. Grand Ave.

GREEN CITRUS FLORAL

TOM FORD Sole di Positano eau de parfum, $225, Tom Ford, 66 E. Oak St. WOODY ORIENTAL MUSKY FLORAL

PRADA L’Homme Prada eau de toilette, $78, Bloomingdale’s, 900 N. Michigan Ave.

CARTIER L’Envol de Cartier eau de parfum, $132, Cartier, 630 N. Michigan Ave.

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CULTURE TASTEMAKER

JOSHUA BLAKE CARTER Choreographer, dancer, and hot-wing fiend

BY JENNY BERG

H

eâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a choreographer by trade, but for Joshua Blake Carter, 30, dance extends into all areas of life. He wears stretch denim to fit his bulky legs, favors shoes that can stand a sweat, and knows where to find the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best power food. Ahead of premiering work with Nomi Dance Company on May 20, the Uptown resident shares his favorites.

Stiff cocktail The Midnight Hour at Agami Sushi. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gin, St. Germain, and Sauvignon Blanc.

You should really only have one.

Grooming tip Fiber by American Crew gives your hair a nice shape. Just add a little hair spray, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perfect.

Wellness tip Masseur Eric Wallbruch. He works out of his home.

Cheat meal Hot wings at Wilde 54

C H I C AG O M AG . CO M

Bar & Restaurant or margaritas at Fiesta Mexicana.

Best view of the city Millennium Park from Cindyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s at the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel in the summertime right at dusk.

Carter at the Auditorium Theatre.

Suit, $115 for similar, H&M, 840 N. Michigan Ave.

Favorite album Laura Mvula with Metropole Orkest.

Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a jazzy soul singer, but she has a whole band behind her.

Favorite Chicago landmark The Auditorium Theatre. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a prestigious place to perform, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also ' !(#Ĺ? (. .) spectator there.

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Herschel Supply Co. backpack. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You can get these bags in a million different prints and colors.â&#x20AC;? $65 to $110, herschelsupply.com

25 Years: Dance for Life. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 250 pages of beautiful shots of Chicago dancers by the photographer Sandro.â&#x20AC;? $50 to $100, chicagodancersunited.org

Brooch. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I bought it for $8 to jazz up a black tux at a gala. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s become quite the conversation piece.â&#x20AC;? $7 to $8 for similar, Clark Fashion Depot, 4510 N. Clark St.

P H OTO G R A P H Y BY P E T YA S H A L A M A N OVA

PHOTOGRAPHY: (BOOK) COURTESY OF CHICAGO DANCERS UNITED; (BACKPACK) COURTESY OF VENDOR

Secret obsession I buy so much Trader Joeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s trail mix that people have started giving it to me for Christmas.

DOUGLAS HOFMANN Join Martin Lawrence Galleries Schaumburg for a breathtaking exhibition showcasing new original paintings, drawings and prints by this acclaimed master artist.

ARTIST RECEPTION

Saturday, May 20, 2017 6:00 –8:00

PM

RSVP (630) 954-3033 WARHOL • PICASSO • NICHOLLS • MUR AK AMI • MAS • KOSTABI KONDAKOVA • HOFMANN • HARING • HALL AM • GOLK AR • FRESSINIER FR ANCIS • ERTÉ • DE YBER • DALÍ • CHAG ALL • BERTHO and others

Martin•Lawrence Galleries 5 Woodfield Mall, Schaumburg (second Level next to Nordstrom) M A R T I N L A W R E N C E .C O M W O O D F I E L D C O N S U LTA N T S @ M A R T I N L A W R E N C E .C O M

M AY 2 0 1 7 C H I C AG O M AG . CO M

55

The Capital of

Summer Free activities, culture-ďŹ lled neighborhoods and unique events make the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capital a prime summertime destination.

Plan your best summer ever at WASHINGTON.ORG.

Call - - - to speak with a visitor services expert.

S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N | Discover Washington, DC

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Explore the U.S. National Arboretum, a 446-acre agricultural wonder in the heart of the District. You will be dazzled by a diversity of flora, including bonsai trees and azaleas. The Arboretum also features the historic National Capitol Columns that supported the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol from 1828-1958.

10 Free Summer Activities in Washington, DC

1

Experience pioneering art at the Renwick Gallery. Through Aug. 27, you can marvel at the trendse ing and inventive enamel work of artist June Schwarcz inside the Invention and Variation exhibit. The recently renovated Renwick is also a work of art itself.

2

Run, hike, bike, play tennis or ride horses in Rock Creek Park. The 4.4-square-mile natural oasis runs through the heart of the District, and serves as a wonderful contrast to the city’s many architectural marvels.

3

Catch a free show! The Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage has been offering free performances from artists in an array of genres for 20 years.

Help the venue celebrate by a ending a concert on any night of the week at 6 p.m.

U S NATIONAL ARBORETUM

6

Go monumental at the Lincoln Memorial, one of the most iconic sites in DC. Pose next to Abe inside or enjoy the scenery, including the famous Reflecting Pool, outside. Make sure to share your images using #MyDCcool.

7

Trace the beginnings of American democracy at the National Archives, where you can view original copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In-depth exhibits will enlighten you to how these documents have shaped the United States and its most important issues.

4

Discover fascinating Native American history at the National Museum of the American Indian, which features a range of artifacts and exhibits that tell the Native American tale. Patriot Nations: Native Americans in Our Nation’s Armed Forces is on display through Jan. 2018.

5

Say “Hey, Bei Bei!” to the cutest panda in the country at the free-toenter National Zoo. You can also witness daily seal feedings or ride a carousel featuring 58 hand-carved endangered species.

In total, the zoo features 1,500 animals across 300 different species.

#

9

Kick back with sangria and groove to the music at Jazz in the Garden on Fridays throughout summer. Held in the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, the music series offers an eclectic mix of Washington, DC-area jazz musicians and one of the city’s most idyllic summer scenes set around a dazzling water fountain.

10

Behold the technological glory of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, a four-level National Mall museum that details every aspect of the African American experience. Timed passes to the popular museum can be secured online ahead of your visit.

NO FILTER NEEDED

Free up your phone storage before visiting Georgetown!

D.C.’s oldest neighborhood is picture perfect, from the historic C&O Canal to its cobblestone streets, kayakers on the Potomac, charming boutiques and al fresco dining.

OfficialGeorgetownDC @OfficialGeorgetownDC @GeorgetownDC

Take the Metro to Foggy Bottom-GWU or Rosslyn, VA; or ride the DC Circulator bus to Georgetown.

GEORGETOWN BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT

THE NATIONAL ZOO

S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N | Discover Washington, DC

Adams Morgan A veritable playground for record collectors, night owls and coffee lovers, Adams Morgan is one of DC’s most eclectic neighborhoods.

8 Notable Neighborhoods

in the Nation’s

Capital Experience DC like a local with these claims to fame and can’t-miss tips.

CLAIM TO FAME Live music is a must in the neighborhood and Madam’s Organ delivers every night of the week with blues, R&B and bluegrass bands.

DON’T MISS Come hungry for ethnic eats like rice bowls from Donburi, barbecue brisket from the Federalist Pig and late night nosh on the roo op of Roofers Union.

MADAM’S ORGAN

Capitol Hill Explore the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center, Library of Congress and U.S. Supreme Court, and then discover the neighborhood oozing with hidden gems.

CLAIM TO FAME Check out Eastern Market for DC-centric artworks and flea market finds, and legendary blueberry buckwheat pancakes from Market Lunch.

DISTRICT DOUGHNUT

DON’T MISS Make a bee line for Barracks Row and brunch at Belga Café, go nuts at District Doughnut or bite into a housemade pop tart at Ted’s Bulletin.

AMERICA’S FIRST MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

1600 21st Street, NW, Washington,DC PhillipsCollection.org |

S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N | Discover Washington, DC

Capitol Riverfront Situated near an historic Navy Yard, this blossoming enclave has become a fast favorite for families and groups of friends.

CLAIM TO FAME The parks. Nationals Park hosts MLB’s National League East Champion Washington Nationals, and The Yards Park hosts free Friday night concerts – as well as a splash-friendly fountain for the li le ones.

NATIONALS PARK DON’T MISS Catch sunset on the patio of rustic Italian restaurant Osteria Morini, two scoops of deliciousness from Ice Cream Jubilee or locally cra ed beers from Bluejacket brewery.

Georgetown

CLAIM TO FAME If you’re hoping to experience DC nightlife like a local, hi ing up H Street is a rite of passage thanks to Rock & Roll Hotel’s lineup of up-and-coming rockers and the black lit Li le Miss Whiskey’s Golden Dollar.

Well known for its retail outlets and vibrant boutiques, Georgetown is DC’s most historic neighborhood but it also remains one if its ho est.

DON’T MISS Chill out at Make o, a caferetail-Cambodian restaurant hybrid, or play games like indoor mini-golf at H Street Country Club and bocce ball at Vende a.

CLAIM TO FAME Starting as a port town, Georgetown’s harbor offers plenty to see and do, from kayaking at the Key Bridge Boathouse to al fresco dinner and drinks at Tony & Joe’s Seafood Place.

DON’T MISS Stroll past the design district shops lining Cady’s Alley, catch live tunes at Blues Alley and admire stately row houses before retiring for the night at Georgetown Suites, which is located in the center of the neighborhood.

U Street Relive U Street’s glory days as “Black Broadway” with modern-day jazz clubs, speakeasies and other hot nigh ime spots.

CLAIM TO FAME DC has its own hot dog, it’s called the half-smoke, and everyone from former presidents to huge celebrities knows that you should order yours at Ben’s Chili Bowl with chili on top.

DON’T MISS Explore the African American Civil War Museum, savor wood roasted mezze at Chef Mike Isabella’s small plates hot spot Kapnos and take a $10 tour of District Distilling Co.

H Street NE The new DC Streetcar runs the length of H Street, making it easy to stop off at any of its internationally inspired eateries, performance venues and cool cafes.

Shaw At the heart of DC’s dining renaissance, Shaw is home to a growing number of exciting food concepts, trendy shops and historic music venues.

CLAIM TO FAME Inventive eateries have taken over: case in point, Espita Mezcaleria makes multiple mean moles, and Convivial has generated buzz with its fried chicken coq au vin.

DON’T MISS Fuel up on innovative pastries at Bu ercream Bakeshop, check out local art at the Long View Gallery and get a photo with the Duke Ellington statue outside the Howard Theatre.

NoMa Explore just north of the U.S. Capitol and you’ll come across captivating finds at every turn, from Union Station and the National Postal Museum to a food-filled marketplace.

CLAIM TO FAME Adventures in eating are readily available at Union Market (closed on Mondays), where you can slurp oysters, tuck into Korean-style tacos and house a hulking beef and cheddar sandwich.

DON’T MISS Take a free tour of the NPR headquarters on weekdays, indulge in unique Italian fare at Michelin-starred Masseria and gear up at an REI flagship store – located in the same space where the Beatles played their first American concert.

American Visionary:

John F. Kennedy’s Life and Times May 3–September 17 A look at the legacy of JFK through the golden age of photojournalism.

Smithsonian 8th and G Streets NW, Washington DC AmericanArt.si.edu/jfk #atSAAM #JFK100

John F. Kennedy. Photo © Philippe Halsman, Magnum Photos

S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N | Discover Washington, DC

HOLIDAYS, CELEBRATE DC knows how to throw down for summer’s trio of holidays.

Memorial Day

Independence Day

May 29

July 4

Memorial Day commemoration kicks off a day early in Washington, DC each year.

On the Sunday before the holiday, salute riders at the Rolling Thunder Rally as thousands of motorcycles roar through the National Mall to pay tribute to American prisoners of war and those who went missing in action.

Start the Fourth out right with the National Independence Day Parade at 11:45 a.m., which sports fife and drum corps, elaborate floats and military servicemen and women.

That night, PBS hosts the National Memorial Day Concert with the National Symphony Orchestra on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, which includes celebrities and is free.

While thousands pay homage to fallen American heroes on the National Mall every day of the year, on Memorial Day you can a end wreath-laying ceremonies at sights like the National World War II Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

Grab the kids, line up along Constitution Avenue and wave the stars and stripes at the National Memorial Day Parade, starting at 2 p.m. The lively procession is the largest of its kind in the country and includes marching bands, floats and military veterans.

Also throughout the weekend, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts honors the 100th birthday of President John F. Kennedy with an array of events and performances entitled JFK Centennial, including a lively, star-studded celebration at 7:30 p.m. on Memorial Day.

On every Independence Day, DC dazzles with an epic fireworks display, part of A Capitol Fourth on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. The event also features live music performances and a whole lot of patriotism. Insider tip: watch the fireworks from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for a fantastic view.

The ever-popular Smithsonian Folklife Festival (June 29 – July 4, July 6-9), held on the National Mall, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and makes for a great family activity on the holiday. The 2017 edition will focus on circus arts, standouts in the folk and traditional arts and the culture of migration.

Enter The Hive, the latest summer blockbuster installation at the National Building Museum. Opening on July 4 and running through Sept. 4, the immersive exhibit was designed by world-renowned architecture firm Studio Gang. A erward, eat up at a backyard barbecue on the museum’s west lawn.

Museums also offer ways to celebrate the ultimate American holiday.

Walk beside stunningly lifelike wax versions of America’s commandersin-chief in the Presidents Gallery at Madame Tussauds. The National Museum of American History displays the flag that inspired the Star-Spangled Banner and an exhibit focused on the American presidency, as well as the interactive Wegmans Wonderplace.

FIREWORKS ON JULY

WORLD WAR II MEMORIAL SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION Discover Washington, DC

2 Must-See Shows in D.C. and New York National Museum of the American Indian

POTOMAC RIVERBOAT COMPANY

Labor Day September 4

Lovers of nature will want to visit the National Museum of Natural History, where hundreds of rare artifacts and specimens will be on display as part of the Objects of Wonder exhibit.

If experiencing great works of art is more to your liking, head to The Phillips Collection, the country’s first museum of modern art that features outstanding works by Mark Rothko, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and many others.

Cap off summer in style: Don your shades and listen to the National Symphony Orchestra perform its annual free concert on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol the Sunday before Labor Day. For a less-crowded affair, a end the free rehearsal around 3 p.m.

DC’s Potomac River boasts some of the most breathtaking views of the city. Head to the docks at Georgetown and embark on a monuments tour aboard a Potomac Riverboat Company cruise. And if you’d like to make it a brunch, lunch or dinner voyage, check out Entertainment Cruises fleet at the Southwest Waterfront.

Through September 4, 2017

Celebrate the visual range, creative expression and political nuance of Native American fashion with nearly 70 works in Native Fashion Now. Vibrant street fashions to exquisite haute couture showcase the vitality of Native designers.

Native Fashion Now is organized by the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts. The Coby Foundation Ltd. provided generous support. The New York presentation of this exhibition and related programming is made possible through the generous support of Ameriprise Financial and the members of the New York Board of Directors of the National Museum of the American Indian. Additional funding provided by Macy’s.

THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION

Orlando Dugi (Diné [Navajo]), cape, dress, and headdress from “Desert Heat” collection, 2012. Silk, organza, feathers, beads and 24k gold; feathers, beads, and silver; porcupine quills and feathers. Model: Julia Foster. Hair and makeup: Dina DeVore. Photo by Nate Francis/Unék Photography (detail).

One Bowling Green | New York City

The Face of Battle: Americans at War, 9/11 to Now One of the Boys by Stacy L. Pearsall, aluminum print, 2007. Courtesy of the artist

April 7, 2017, through Jan. 28, 2018

Until January 2018

PATRIOT NATIONS: Native Americans in Our Nation’s Armed Forces Since the Revolutionary War—and in every major U.S. military conflict since—Native Americans have served in the armed forces in higher numbers than any other ethnic group. Patriot Nations illuminates this lesser known history.

Ira H. Hayes American Legion Post 84 Color Guard, National Powwow, Washington, DC, 2007.

On the National Mall | Washington DΫCΫ

In a culture that has often normalized warfare, six artists focus on capturing and conveying the reality of the modern soldier.

This exhibition is sponsored by Altria Group.

Smithsonian 8th and F St. NW • Washington, DC 20001 • npg.si.edu

Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian AmericanIndian.si.edu | FREE

S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N | Discover Washington, DC

YOUR GATEWAY TO

Arts & Culture

Silver Spring, Maryland is located just minutes from Washington, D.C. Visit this bustling arts and entertainment destination this summer and enjoy summer concerts, outdoor movies, farmers markets and plenty of shops, restaurants and attractions.

The Silver Spring Jazz Festival is on Saturday, September 9, 2017. www.VISITMONTGOMERY.com/DTSS | 877.789.6904 Socialize with us @VisitMoCo Photo credit: Silver Spring Arts & Entertainment District , Ken Stanek Photography

What’s Happening This Summer JUNE Capital Pride June 8-11 | Citywide Join the local LGBTQ community for a celebration complete with street festivals, concerts and a much-anticipated parade.

Giant National Capital Barbecue Ba le June 24-25 | Pennsylvania Avenue Chefs compete in the 25th anniversary of this annual food and music fest.

JULY

DC Jazz Festival June 10-19 | Citywide Some of the world’s best jazz musicians get together in DC for more than a week of performances across the city.

‘An Octoroon’ July 18 – Aug. 6 | Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company Tackling issues of race and slavery, this highly charged, Obie Award-winning comedy makes its DC debut at Woolly Mammoth.

‘Marlene Dietrich: Dressed for the Image’ June 16 – April 15, 2018 | National Portrait Gallery Photos, film clips and letters from this gender-bending, early Hollywood star comprise this exhibition.

Citi Open July 29 – Aug. 6 | Rock Creek Park Tennis Center Returning champs Gael Monfils and Juan Martin del Potro, and Olympic gold medalist Monica Puig star in DC’s premier pro tennis event.

AUGUST Metropolitan Washington Summer Restaurant Week presented by RAMW Aug. 14-20 | Citywide Reserve a table for this annual summer tradition, as DC’s top restaurants offer discounted, prixfixe meals for lunch and dinner.

Comcast Xfinity Outdoor Film Festival Aug. 24-26 Enjoy three nights of free outdoor flicks at the Gudelsky Gazebo at Strathmore, an art and music performance venue in Bethesda, Maryland.

17th Street Festival Aug. 27 | 17th Street NW Commemorate one of the city’s most diverse streets at this all-day festival with drag performances, street vendors and a kids zone.

S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N | Discover Washington, DC

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If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got wanderlust

If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re thirsty

If you want to see and be seen

If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re feeling virtuous

THE GUNDIS

PUBLICAN ANKER

HONEY'S

TRUE FOOD KITCHEN

2909 N. Clark St., Lake View

1576 N. Milwaukee Ave., Wicker Park

1111 W. Lake St., West Loop

1 W. Erie St., River North

THE VIBE Culinary thrill seekers

THE VIBE Sedate Bucktown natives mingling with hung-over partyers in search of some hair of the dog.

WHAT TO EAT Take a friend and go to town on the breakfast for two ($37): You pick an egg dish (our preference: scrambled eggs with soujouk, a spiced dry sausage), and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll receive a platter accompanied by cheeses, three kinds of jams, olives, fries, and a whole lot more.

WHAT TO EAT Carbs, the better to lay a sturdy base for a few drinks. Start with some sourdough and creamy pimiento cheese ($12), then tuck into ricotta toast topped with delicately smoked mackerel Â&#x2DC;ÂĽrvÂ&#x2122;} *&/- /&)/-&3 Ĺ? %3 cinnamon roll ($5).

THE VIBE With sunshine streaming in through a skylight, the white-walled dining room looks lovely. The well-heeled diners? Even lovelier.

THE VIBE As if the diners came

descending upon Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only Kurdish restaurant. No passport required.

WHAT TO DRINK The

WHAT TO DRINK Bloody

breakfast for two includes bottomless pours of sweet Kurdish black tea (Ă la carte, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s $2.25).

it upâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the Verde Maria ($10), with tomatillo and tequila, is a refreshing twist on the classic.

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WHAT TO EAT Think upgraded

basics: oatmeal with apple saba, a cooked-down juice thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s got an acidic bite ($8), hash made with the Spanish blood sausage morcilla ($13), and a crackly fritter featuring a pine-bud glaze ($5).

WHAT TO DRINK For once,

a brunch sparkler thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not an oversugared afterthought: the Crimes of Passion Bellini ($10), made with Cava, purĂŠed passion ,/#.} ( & ,Ĺ?)1 , &#+/ /,|

from the gym and have dietary restrictions that the eager servers canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wait to accommodate.

WHAT TO EAT The menu

at this emporium earned approval from health food guru Andrew Weil, so you can talk yourself into thinking just about anything on it is healthy. As for what tastes best? /#() $)"((3 % - Â&#x2DC;ÂĽrrÂ&#x2122;} Ĺ?/ 3 and just sweet enough.

WHAT TO DRINK Why ruin your runnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s high with a cocktail?

Wash your avocado toast down with a zingy tonic made from apples, carrots, and ginger ($4).

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEFF MARINI

RIVERSCASINO.COM 888.307.0777 3000 S. River Road | Des Plaines, IL 60018 Must be 21 years of age or older. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537).

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IN THE KITCHEN

THE CAN-DO SAUCE If nuoc cham, the all-purpose Vietnamese condiment, isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t already in your bag of tricks (or your vocabularyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pronounced nuke chom), it should be. Bright, tangy, and packed with umami, it enlivens stir-fries and grilled ďŹ sh, provides a ďŹ&#x201A;avor-rich marinade for meats, and makes a great dipping sauce for spring rolls. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fresh, preservative-free, and super, super easy to make,â&#x20AC;? says Mary Nguyen Aregoni, founder of the beloved Vietnamese mini-chain Saigon Sisters. Oh, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s delicious on salads, too. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;MAGGIE HENNESSY MARY NGUYEN AREGONIâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S NUOC CHAM

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PENNYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S NEW FAVE

LOWCOUNTRY As soon as I grabbed a seat at a picnic table at this friendly seafood-boil spot in Lake View, I ordered my go-to lightly battered shrimpâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and, just for the hell of it, a side of deep-fried garlic beignets ($6).

Crusty and garlic-studded on the outside, cozy and warm on the inside, they were fabulous. The shrimp is good, but the beignets are why Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be going back. 3343 N. Clark St. 68

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DRINK

MOVE OVER, HARD CIDER Mead, an old artisanal alcohol, is finally generating buzz. BY CARLY BOERS

S

eventeen years ago in Beverly, Greg Fischer opened Wild Blossom Meadery, Illinoisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very first mead-producing facility. Given Chicagoansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; love of craft beer and hard cider, he canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t figure out why itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s taken so long for them to embrace the honey-based fermented beverage with medieval origins and a growing national following.

HIVE TO GLASS Fifty percent of the honey that gets fermented to make Wild Blossomâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s meads comes from Greg Fischerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own bees. He maintains hives in former industrial areas along Lake Michigan; at the Volkening Haritage Farm at Spring Valley in 70

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;We live in the prairie, which produces flowers, which produce honey,â&#x20AC;? says Fischer. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make more sense for the Midwest to be the mead capital of the country.â&#x20AC;?

In his newly opened tasting room, Fischer pours around 15 of the dozens of varietiesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;both still and sparklingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;he has in his repertoire. Offerings include Prairie Passion, a traditional mead that showcases wildďŹ&#x201A;ower honeyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ďŹ&#x201A;oral ďŹ&#x201A;avor; CranApple Cyser, a fruit-infused sparkler; Sweet Desire, a bold bourbon-barrel-aged mead made from buckwheat honey; and, on the wilder end of the spectrum, the chili-pepperinfused Pirateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Blood and the chocolaty Sâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;mores Bochet.

Wild Blossomâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s backyard is the Dan Ryan Woods, a forest preserve, and Fischer, an avid nature lover who bikes to work from his Beverly home, considers the picturesque surroundings a natural ďŹ t for his bright, skylit tasting room. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mead is like nature in a glass, so Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve really played that up.â&#x20AC;?

Not surprisingly, Fischer predicts a bees-to-honey effect: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Once people taste how good our stuff is, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll start seeing mead pop up all over.â&#x20AC;? 9030 S. Hermitage Ave.

Schaumburg; in rural St. Anne; and atop his meadery in Beverly.

Fischer extracts the honey from the combs and dilutes it to temper its sweetness. It is then fermented with yeast in stainless steel tanks for 30 days so the sugars convert to alcohol. During a second fermentation, Fischer often adds fruit to

#'* ,. ( 1 Ĺ? 0),-| " ' , -.- ), .1) '), 1 %- ), #. #- Ĺ?&. , ( )..& | Â&#x2C6; 0 ,3 Ĺ?)1 , *,) / - differently Ĺ? 0), ")( 3} ( 0 ,3 ")( 3 *,) / - a different mead,â&#x20AC;? says Fischer. â&#x20AC;&#x153; " possibilities are endless.â&#x20AC;?

Fischerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s meads can be purchased by the bottle at Wild Blossom Meadery.

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TEATIME An English tradition thrives in the south suburbs. BY PENNY POLLACK

B

akewell Bakery is a Mayberryesque shop with a British accent.

The adorable 20-seat bakery and cafĂŠ in downtown Flossmoor is closed on Sundaysâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;unless, that is, you have a reservation for its proper afternoon English tea. When you arrive at the appointed time, the front door might be locked, but if you knock, genial chef-owner Pat Ledsham will answer and lead you and

your dining companions to a table set for a homey tea party.

The single-page menu offers six teas from Darvilles of Windsor, ranging from English breakfast (for novices) to Assam (for aďŹ cionados). You are bound to smile when your order arrives in a jaunty red double-decker ceramic pot along with a timer for precise steeping.

You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to make any more decisions after that because a threetiered feast is set before you. A word to the wise: Pace yourself. Start at the bottom and nibble on ďŹ nger sandwiches made of smoked salmon on white bread, roasted ham on house-baked brioche, egg salad (made with mayonnaise from a closely guarded family recipe) on wheat bread, cheddar from Derbyshire (also on

brioche), and mini sausages wrapped in housemade puff pastry.

The middle tier holds less complicated pleasures: still-warm currant scones with clotted cream, strawberry preserves, and lemon curd. You might want your second pot of tea before starting in on the sweets at the summit: raspberry macarons, lemon tarts, mille-feuilles.

If you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t ďŹ nish, not to worry: Ledsham boxes up your leftovers. If you do ďŹ nish, she replenishes anything you particularly loved.

The whole shebang is $30 per person, and you wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be hungry for dinner.

(High tea is also available during business hours Wednesdays to Saturdays, but you must still have reservations.)

1050 Sterling Ave., Flossmoor

BUDGET PICK

THE POLENTA BAR 1002 W. Lake St. Polenta is a pillar of northern Italian cuisine. The guys behind the Polenta Bar, a newcomer to the West Loop scene, can be trusted to do right by itâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;owner Emile Chalouhi and chef Camillo Villa are both Milanese. They recently moved to Chicago, hometown of Chalouhiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wife, and brought with them three machines that churn the creamy ground cornmeal and dispense it like soft serve at the pull of a lever. Customers are invited to dress up their polenta, Chipotle-style, by ladling on one of seven different saucesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;like garlicky octopus with capers and olives ($15) or wild boar stew ($14).

Freshly baked or grilled vegetables serve as toppings. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stick-to-your-ribs comfort )) 1#." Ă&#x160;)(.#( (. & Ĺ? #,| â&#x20AC;&#x201D;CARRIE SCHEDLER

Polenta with octopus and olive sauce

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TABLE

The Hot List

10 places everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s talking about (in order of heat) QUIOTE Easy game plan: a few small plates (aguachile, sweet potatoes, duck tacos) and a few small glasses (of mezcal). (See page 80.)

2456 N. California Ave. INCOME TAX How did a cozy wine bar with really good food get such a bad name? No one in Edgewater cares. 5959 N. Broadway

Black Forest duck at Income Tax

BURTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S PLACE If the clamor for tables here is any indication, the new owners of this famed caramelizedcrust pizza joint have done the dearly departed Burt Katz proud.

8541 N. Ferris Ave., Morton Grove MI TOCAYA ANTOJERĂ?A Diana DĂĄvila digs into her beloved Mexican street snacks. Chicagoans follow suit. 2800 W. Logan Blvd.

ORIGINAL RAINBOW CONE Hooray! Now open after its annual four-month winter hiatus.

9233 S. Western Ave. ELLA ELLI With roasted fennel, avocado toast, and hamachi crudo on the menu, this casual newbie has Southport Corridor folks feeling &#% ." 3Â&#x2039;0 Ĺ?( &&3 ,,#0 | 1349 W. Cornelia Ave.

Mission Impossible at SafeHouse Chicago

DEADBOLT A retro tavern in Logan Square owned by the Furious Spoon guys. The line starts here.

2412 N. Milwaukee Ave. TORINO RAMEN Finally, ramen in downtown Wilmette. Bonus: Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s around the corner from the movie theater. 1162 Wilmette Ave., Wilmette

Crispy fried chicken sandwich and fries at Nicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Organic Fast Food

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NICâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ORGANIC FAST FOOD Where the healthy /441), - Ĺ?3 - ."# % ( -.

- ." ,.#Ĺ? ),! (# /,! ,- and fries. 2101 S. Plum Grove Rd., Rolling Meadows â&#x20AC;&#x201D;PENNY POLLACK

PHOTOGRAPHY: (INCOME TAX) NELSON FITCH; (SAFEHOUSE CHICAGO) COURTESY OF HANKR; (NICâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ORGANIC FAST FOOD) NEIL BURGER

SAFEHOUSE CHICAGO A spy-themed restaurant for 007 wannabes and those who love them.

60 E. Ontario St.

;17 $4+0) 6*' %1/2#0;

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll Bring the Food!

&#;5 1( &'.+%+175 &+0+0) Å° ,70' ,70' MEDIA SPONSORSHIP A Meridian Company

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Delish

DINING & DRINKING SCENE

SPECIAL ADVERTISING FE ATURE

W

ansas Tequila brings the highlands of Jalisco, Mexico to Chicago with their award-winning quality product. With accolades such as a double gold medal in the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and a gold medal in the Beverage Tasting Institute, the Chicago-based brand translates to “discover unexpectedly”. Wansas’ is on a mission to create a quality product that will unite people, while embracing their roots to produce artisanal tequila.

The bottle itself is a nod to their historical roots; its shape resembles the iconic pyramids of Mexico, paying tribute to Mexico’s rich history.

Wansas Mixologist, Alex Gonzales, believes the brand’s simple spirit is easy to work with “because it allows itself to blend and enhance the rich flavors with fresh ingredients. The diversity of Wansas’s delicate aroma, notes, and flavors are a great way to mix wansastequilla.com and put a twist on classic drinks, Available at like a Manhattan or Mojito.”

Binny’s, Mariano’s Visit wanastequila.com for more information and great recipes.

An Upscale, Comfortable, Neighborhood Wine Bar where you can enjoy a libation while feeling at home. We serve Wine, Cocktails, Beer and Charcuterie.

Hours: Mon -Thurs 4-11pm Friday 4-Midnight Saturday Noon-Midnight Sunday Noon-10pm

Available for private parties | Visit facebook.com/J9WineBar for events 1961 N. Halsted St., Chicago, II 60614 (312) 982-2488, www.j9winebar.com 76

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING FE ATURE

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Delish

DINING & DRINKING GUIDE

ne of the Best New Restaurants to hit the Chicago Suburban Restaurant scene is Shakou Arlington Heights! Shakou’s fifth location does not disappoint in providing its promised delicious modern Asian cuisine and trendy “city vibe” eatery.

The diverse, award winning Shakou menu has expanded to include new entrees of note like the Diver Scallop and Shrimp and Berkshire Porkchop, while fan favorites like the Braised Short Rib and Chilean Sea Bass continue to receive rave reviews.

Shakou Libertyville Shakou also offers one of the most 224-433-6675 extensive, fresh and innovative sushi Shakou St. Charles and maki selections in the industry.

630-444-0850 Shakou Arlington Heights delivers a Shakou Barrington memorable dining experience with 224-655-2853 style and sophistication, staying true Shakou Park Ridge to the brand legacy established by the 773-441-9900 Libertyville, St. Charles, Barrington and Shakou Arlington Heights Park Ridge locations. Shakou promises 847-749-3915 an experience unlike any other and Shakourestaurants.com they deliver at every location. You must experience Shakou!

Buenos Aires

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Delish

L

SPECIAL ADVERTISING FE ATURE

DINING & DRINKING SCENE

a Mozzarella is the Midwest region’s premier importer and distributor of DOP Buffalo Mozzarella, DOP Caciocavallo, Fior di latte di Agerola, Provolone del Monaco, Burrata Pugliese and other fresh authentic cheeses directly from Italy.

One of our most delicious and popular products at La Mozzarella is our imported Burrata. This rich, porcelain-white, unripened cheese can be used in a variety of ways. With its delicate and buttery flavor, it adds a richness and creaminess to all your dishes. Use it in salads, on crusty breads, pizza and more.

The ambition for La Mozzarella is not to be the largest importer of fresh products from Italy, but for it to be the best. They personally meet with very chef and hand deliver each order, ensuring its freshness and quality.

Shop online or enjoy our products at one of our many restaurant partners throughout the Chicagoland area.

La Mozzarella 847-312-3401 lamozzarellachicago.com

Come see us at the Bellavita Pavilion at the NRA Show!

Artango Bar & Steakhouse 4767 N. Lincoln Ave. | 872-208-7441 artangosteakhouse.com J9 Wine 1961 N. Halsted St. | 312-982-2488 j9winebar.com

DIRECTORY

La Mozzarella 847-312-3401 lamozzarellachicago.com

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Shakou Libertyville 625 N. Milwaukee Ave. | 224-433-6675 Shakou St. Charles 312 W. Main St. | 630-444-0850 Shakou Barrington 121 W. Main St. | 224-655-2853 Shakou Park Ridge 130 S. Prospect Ave. | 773-771-9900 Shakou Arlington Heights 70 N. Vail Ave. | 847-749-3915 shakourestaurants.com Wansas Tequila wansastequilla.com Available at Binny’s, Mariano’s

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DINING AND DRINKING SPONSORS ALHAMBRA PALACE 1240 W. Randolph St. 312-666-9555 Belly dancing on Friday & Satruday

PRIME & PROVISIONS 222 N. LaSalle St. 312-726-7777 primeandprovisions.com

BAR SIENA 832 W. Randolph St. 312-492-7775 barsiena.com

PUBLIC HOUSE 400 N. State St. 312-265-1240 publichousechicago.com

BOMBOBAR 832 W. Randolph St. 312-492-7775 barsiena.com/bombobar.pdf

THE RADLER 2375 N. Milwaukee Ave. 773-276-0270 dasradler.com

CLUB LUCKY 1824 W. Wabansia 773-227-2300 clubluckychicago.com

SIENA TAVERN 51 W. Kinzie St. 312-595-1322 sienatavern.com

KURAH MEDITERRANEAN 1355 S. Michigan Ave. 312-624-8611 kurahchicago.com

Find these listings and more at chicagomag.com/diningguide To participate, please email marketplace@chicagomag.com

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Skokie • Hoffman Estates • Downers Grove • Gold Coast • Waukesha • Munster

BEST Ultrahaute tasting menus in dressed-down environs. Veggie-centric dining in the heart of a red-meat district. A food court stall transformed into an after-hours Korean feast. As this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s picks prove, with great risk can come even greater reward.

By JEFF RUBY â&#x20AC;˘ Photography by Jeff Marini

Noah Sandoval of Oriole

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No. 1

Oriole West Loop • 661 W. Walnut St. Contemporary $190 prix fixe menu Noah Sandoval Chef-partner

Beausoleil oyster and jamón Mangalica

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My ďŹ rst moment of bliss at Oriole happened 45 minutes into my ďŹ rst visit. An Alaska king crab, arranged into a garden-like tableau, exploded on my tongue with bursts of Cara Cara oranges and coconutty Vidalia onion soup. I closed my eyes, and colors Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d never seen streaked across my mind. A sip of crisp 2014 Domaine Weinbach Clos des Capucins Riesling prolonged the euphoriaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;ampliďŹ ed it, evenâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;before it gracefully faded out. Once-in-a-lifetime ďŹ reworks, I thought. But at this four-star jewel stashed on a Fulton Market District side street, I experienced mini-raptures repeatedly.

The setting lights the spark. The 28-seat room, accessed via a freight elevator, casts a luxurious spell, from the wide-open kitchen to an exposed timber ceiling. Servers slip in and out with almost preternatural graceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and happen to be funny and whip-smart, too.

But Orioleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s true genius revolves around the comely and intuitive food from chef-partners Noah Sandoval and Genie Kwon, showcased on an admirably ungimmicky 18-course prix ďŹ xe menu ($190). Take the jamĂłn Mangalica.

Sandoval prepares the imported Hungarian ham as a consommĂŠ in a Beausoleil oyster shell with smoked ďŹ nger limes, borage, mint, and black pepper. That would be enough for most. But he also slices the jamĂłn microthin, wraps it around a pencil-shaped cracker thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been dipped in a black pepper gastrique and rolled in candied almond crumble, and then he garnishes the whole thing with eight wonders, including whipped egg yolk and coriander blooms. No tricks.

Just imagination, sweat, and an intimate understanding of ďŹ&#x201A;avor. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Gimmicks are a crutch,â&#x20AC;? says Sandoval. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Meatloaf is good. Deconstructed meatloaf is not.â&#x20AC;?

The same philosophy extends to Kwonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s magniďŹ cent desserts, such as a crispy-smooth tuile cylinder encasing a creamy gianduja of white chocolate, milk chocolate, and hazelnut, with caramelized banana chips and hits of lemon sauce and caramelized goat yogurt.

Which is to say that at Oriole, you may experience your bliss during this ďŹ nal course. Or during the lovely tea service that follows, which includes cookie rolls ďŹ lled with tonka bean cream. Or even in the bathroom, where homemade mints await. But you will experience bliss.

No. 1 Oriole

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STANDOUT DISH Super Uni Shooter " Ĺ?,-. (.,3 )( # (.Â&#x2039;- ' (/~ .1) *Â&#x2019; ,# ), - ) , 1 - /, "#( ,) '#2 1#." /.. ,} !) "/$ (! Â&#x2DC; ,' (. "). * ** , * -. Â&#x2122;} . ' ,#} ( )( (- '#&%| .Â&#x2039;- &#% -. ,.#(!

- (. ( 1#." ( 2 & ' .#)( *)#(.|

No. 2

Giant Logan Square 3209 W. Armitage Ave. American $25 to $35

-)( #( (. ( Ă? ( /-. , Chef-partners The couple dining at Giantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s kitchen counter were in town to see Hamilton, and one of them was celebrating a birthday, so their server and bartender decided to personalize a shot for them. Ecstatic at the prospect of thrilling two strangers, they came up with a mix of Cynar, bourbon, and Cocchi Vermouth di Torino and called it the Hamilton Chicago. The couple loved it.

That, my friends, is hospitality. And somehow Giant pulls it off even when the place gets busy, which is pretty much always. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s amazing how nice and happy everyone on staff is,â&#x20AC;? says chef-partner Jason Vincent. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You know how you go to a restaurant and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s supposed to be hip and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re all mean to you? We told the staff: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do that.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; They donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t.â&#x20AC;?

It helps that theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re peddling delightful foodâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;think pecan-smoked baby back ribs and homemade biscuits with warm jalapeĂąo butterâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;made by a tight crew largely composed of chefs who began as interns under Vincent and partner Ben Lustbader at Nightwood or Lula Cafe. The small plates come fast and furious, and not one of them exceeds $19, not even showstoppers such as housemade cannelloni with smoked lamb, mint yogurt, porcini butter, and arugula pesto.

The narrow storefront, between Sink|Swim and Scofflaw, packs in diners, and it throbs with excitement, that may include Guns Nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Roses blasting from a vertical ďŹ&#x201A;oating-record turntable between the bar and kitchen.

No one wants to leave. You may notice groups taking the tiniest nibbles of their vanilla-cajeta ice cream with butter-pecan crunch and strawberries just to extend their meal. And why not? Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got a seat in the 1,400 happiest square feet in Chicago.

No. 3

Smyth West Loop 177 N. Ada St. American $85, $135, and $195 prix ďŹ xe menus

)"( "# & - Executive chefâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;partner

STANDOUT DISH Egg yolk, licorice, yogurt ",)/!" -)' Ĺ?#(!

1#4 , ,3} , ( ,# "# & - " (! - ." )/.-# ) ( !! 3)&% .) &# ),# ( ." #(-# .) /-. , | Ă&#x160;/. #. )* (} -1#,& #. 1#." ,)4 ( 3)!/,. ' ,#(!/ } ,,)} ( & % , -* ,,3 $ '} ( && /( , #.- "3*().# -* &&|

Amid the snapshots of kids and food on my phone, I have a dark photo of a bunch of tongues.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a dish from the opening menu at Smythâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a gathering of pickled and fried duck tongues in roasted squid stock. The picture looks eerie, perhaps even incriminating, and never fails to freak people out. Also, it always makes me hungry.

John Shields and his partner at Smyth, Karen Urie Shieldsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;who happens to be his wifeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;are not afraid to be weird. Their shiny West Loop lair sneaked onto the scene last July with four prix ďŹ xe menus (four, eight, and 12 courses, plus a spontaneous $275 â&#x20AC;&#x153;symphonyâ&#x20AC;?) that showcase unusual compositions and ingredients.

Cracked peach pits? Kelp Marmite? In a lesser kitchenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hands, this sounds like a one-way trip to Train Wreck Town. But the Shieldses (veterans of Charlie Trotterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and Alinea) keep Smyth anchored in pure ďŹ&#x201A;avor.

Sometimes that ďŹ&#x201A;avor takes the blunt form of a warm beef-fat-fried doughnut ďŹ lled with caviar, caramelized onions, braised cabbage, and onion cream. Other times itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s expressed more delicately. Case in point: Dungeness crab with foie gras thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been wet-cured, poached, chilled, and marinated, served with a creation called scrambled kani miso (crab â&#x20AC;&#x153;mustardâ&#x20AC;? mixed with farm egg custard)â&#x20AC;&#x201D;itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the best new dish in Chicago.

The combinations bend in unpredictable ways; John has been known to alter dishes in the middle of service. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The cooks say Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m audibling at the line of scrimmage,â&#x20AC;? he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;So I say â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Omaha,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; like Peyton Manning.â&#x20AC;?

Delightful servers keep meals moving, so diners arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t too fatigued to enjoy Karenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fascinating desserts. Her sage-honey tart compresses a ďŹ&#x201A;ood of adventure into pickled sage ďŹ&#x201A;owers and a dehydrated egg, which coat the mouth with a thick, buttery sensation. FYI: If you want the celebrated cheeseburger from the Loyalist, the coupleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s popular basement bar, somebody will bring one to you. At Smyth, down is up and up is down.

Duck tacos

No. 4

Quiote Logan Square 2456 N. California Ave. Mexican $25 to $35 ( &&- Chef-partner

Insider Tip 0 ,3 (#!". . rr~tq} ." " - - ( -% . ) sq .) tq -* # & . )- )1( .) ." ' 4 & ,} * ( #(! )( 1" . #(-*#, - ." ' ." . 0 (#(!~ ,( ) } -/ ,)} & 4 ( *#*# (| Â&#x2C6; ' % )( . "}Â&#x2030; - 3- ( &&-| Â&#x2C6;Ă&#x152;( )( ." 3 , -)& )/.} ." 3 , -)& )/.|Â&#x2030;

In February, when a food truck owner and a reporter opened a small-plate Mexican joint/mezcaleria named for the funny-looking stalk on an agave plant, I bet against them. But Dan Salls and Paul Biasco proved me wrong with Logan Squareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stylish Quiote.

They did it by delivering bright takes on chicken mole and churros but also by following the stringent cooking traditions of Mexico City and Oaxaca. Take the miraculous Tamal OaxaqueĂąo, a highlight of the savvy menu. The kitchen prepares the dough from scratch in a painstaking three-day process called nixtamalization, which involves cooking corn kernels in lye and then soaking, rinsing, and hulling them before forming a dough. Finally, the dough gets steamed and served with mushrooms, salsa morita, queso fresco, and peanuts. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the element of my menu Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m most proud of,â&#x20AC;? says Salls.

In the morning, the sunny space serves as a mellow coffee bar; by lunchtime, the wood-burning oven sizzles with conďŹ t brisket for the tacos and tortas. Then dinner. And in the wee hours, the killer basement mezcal bar overďŹ&#x201A;ows with merrymakers who probably never doubted Quiote for a second.

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Japanese wagyu

No. 5

Roister West Loop • 951 W. Fulton Market American Contemporary $60 to $95 Ì( , 1 Í,) "/ Executive chef Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas’s dark and enthusiastic comfort food salon has no shortage of entry points.

There’s the kitchen counter, warmed by a brick-lined hearth, where you can eat a multicourse meal and watch brainy chefs mince fennel fronds and tweeze pea shoots. Or the bar, with wonderful, cockeyed cocktails, like the Pit in the Middle (Cabeza blanco tequila and housemade cola sweetened by PX sherry, in a glass rimmed with a secret spice blend). Even at lunch, Andrew Brochu’s heroic chicken sandwich with chamomile mayo draws a crowd. So while you gape at your Yukon Gold fries with wispy bonito flakes, someone at the next table is probably declaring the foie gras candy bar “the greatest thing ever.” At Roister, all roads lead to the same destination: fulfillment.

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Scallop crudo

AGE OF FIRE Open-ďŹ&#x201A;ame cooking is having a moment: Five of our top restaurants have integrated hardwood hearths into their kitchens. We asked the chefs to share some lessons from their trials by ďŹ re.

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5

From top: Seared scallops, uni with yuzu mist, matcha doughnut, ramen in tonkotsu broth

Justin Behlke

Clams

No. 6

Kitsune North Center 4229 N. Lincoln Ave. Japanese $35 to $45

/-.#( Ă? "&% Chef

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It doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get more DIY than Kitsune. Iliana Reganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lovable JapaneseinďŹ&#x201A;uenced BYO makes its own tofu, miso, and soy sauce.

Her kitchen, a collaboration with Justin Behlke, relies on Midwestern ingredients for its ramen, which plumbs uncharted depths of ďŹ&#x201A;avor with rich pork belly, a perfect soft-boiled egg, a spicy homemade chili sauce, and scallions in a thick tonkotsu broth. Other offeringsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; whether deďŹ ant, like uni with yuzu mist, or accessible, like a doughnut glazed with Japanese whiskeyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;are also airtight. And charmingly twee touches, such as little ceramic bunny chopstick holders and butter molded into fox shapes, wrap diners in the kind of warm and fuzzy cocoon we need so badly in 2017.

STANDOUT DISH Tonkotsu Ramen 0 ( ), 3)/ '#2 #( ( &#+/ 3 ." !!} ." ! ,&# %3 ,)." #- &, 3 -/, &3 ."# %| Ă&#x152; ,# " , ' &#4 *),% &&3 ( " 13 " ( ' ()) & - ) . #( "#&# - / } ( 0 ( ." / & - , /&& ) Ĺ? 0),|

Rice cakes

No. 7

Hanbun Westmont 665 Pasquinelli Dr. Korean $6 to $11 lunch; $75 tasting menu David Park Chef-partner

Insider Tip To accompany Hanbun’s May juhnyuk menu, Park recommends a Gewürztraminer, a dry Riesling, or an unoaked Chardonnay. If you’re into beer, pick a mild-hopped one with a hint of citrus, such as Founders All Day IPA or Lagunitas IPA.

After my first visit to Hanbun, an unlikely haute Korean spot in an unprepossessing shopping mall in the suburb of Westmont, I found myself defending the restaurant to a snobby friend who scoffed at the idea of driving that far to eat in a food court. “But the place is run by this adorable couple!” I exclaimed, going on to explain that Hanbun does flawless renditions of traditional Korean food by day and private white-tablecloth BYO dinners by night.

“The chef got nominated for a James Beard Award!” My friend remained unconvinced.

Since then, word has gotten out: David Park’s creative takes show remarkable understanding of the cuisine of his native Korea. The hearty and nicely caramelized bulgogi ($11) for lunch is every bit as gratifying as the seven-course juhnyuk (dinner) tasting menu ($75), which includes labor-intensive productions such as a bokkeum of octopus—a spicy, sauce-based preparation that’s simmered for three hours, glazed with its reduced stock fortified by chili pepper paste, olive oil, and garlic, and served with parsnip and fermented garlic. At presstime, the dinner was booked through November (weekend reservations book four to six months out). Among those waiting? My snobby city friend.

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No. 9

The Barn Grilled pineapple

Nicole Pederson Executive chef and partner

Cheese and beer soup

No. 8

Leña Brava West Loop • 900 W. Randolph St. Mexican $60 to $65 Rick Bayless Executive chef and owner Oh, Rick Bayless. You couldn’t just open a regular restaurant, could you? Where’s the challenge there? No. You had to launch Leña Brava (“ferocious wood”) with no stoves and no gas hookup, just to keep things interesting. The glossy space overflows with your followers, clanging forks over the breezy seafood of northern Baja California and clinking smoky mezcal cocktails. And in the kitchen, open-hearth cooking—courtesy of a 700-degree wood-burning oven—produces instant classics such as seared octopus “carnitas,” enfolded in steamy tortillas handmade from Oaxacan heirloom corn, alongside lime-pickled onions, frisée, and warm bacon dressing. Your raw bar generates tangy ceviches of hiramasa yellowtail and laminados (thin, sashimi-like slices) of striped bass with pickled vegetables. And, like you, Leña Brava’s servers are giddy food geeks who can’t stop talking about Michoacán avocados and Mazatlán blue shrimp. Yes, Rick, you have caught lightning in a bottle again. This time, it’s a bottle of Fidencio Clásico Mezcal, which goes perfectly with your oven-roasted Baja black cod.

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Evanston • Rear 1016 Church St. American $50 to $60

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Look closely at the bottles behind the bar in this striking bi-level venue. Among the Pinots and Cabs is an old bottle that once held Borden’s condensed milk. “When the plumbers were digging underneath the building, they found it buried in the sand,” says Nicole Pederson. The artifact is a nod to an earlier incarnation of the site, which is located in an alley and served as a horse stable for milk delivery buggies a century ago.

Pederson and Amy Morton, partners in Evanston’s ever-popular Found Kitchen, imbue their new “modern meaterie” with warmth and goofy personality. Here, living moss on the wall; there, a photo of an alpaca named George. By the time customers get around to Insider Tip eating, they have If the reliable already fallen for 16-ounce rib eye with the place. And red wine demi-glace Pederson packs the isn’t enough for menu with crowd you, the kitchen pleasers, such as keeps a secret caviar sandwiches, stash of 32-ounce caramelized calf’s porterhouses. liver, and pan-seared pork chops with sweet potato purée and hazelnut relish. The rolling-cart shtick gets overplayed, but it’s fun to watch a whole roasted branzino with lemon-shallot beurre blanc—the restaurant’s greatest triumph—get deboned tableside.

When Found opened in 2012, Morton’s children begged Pederson to put macaroni and cheese on the menu.

At the Barn, it’s right after the roasted trumpet mushrooms and sautéed green beans. How can you not like this spot?

FRONT-OF-HOUSE PHENOMS CARLEAN HIGGINS, Leña Brava “Once a guy in a suit told me before his guest showed up that he was gonna lean on me because he had no knowledge of upscale Mexican. I said, ‘Relax, I’m gonna make us both look good.’ I like when people come back and remember me—I remember everything they like to eat and drink.”

Waitstaff can be as memorable as the dishes they serve.

Here are four of the best at this year’s top new restaurants.

GIUSEPPE CALDERONE, Kitsune “I grew up in a large Sicilian family.

I was the table-setter and did dishes with my grandma. I used to have an Easy-Bake Oven and would play fake restaurant. You could say I parlayed that into a career.”

TORI HUNTER, Oriole “I make horrible, lame jokes to my tables. But that’s also what makes me endearing to them. Sometimes when I’m clearing plates, if they say, ‘That was good,’ I’ll say, ‘Thank you! Because you’re being so nice, I’ll keep bringing you food.’ That usually gets a giggle.”

Photography by Jeff Sciortino Butter dumplings

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No. 10

Bad Hunter West Loop â&#x20AC;˘ 802 W. Randolph St. Vegetable-centered $35 to $45 ( ()1 ( Executive chef It sounds like a stunt. After considering the cutesy name and the restaurantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s selfdescribed â&#x20AC;&#x153;vegetable-forwardâ&#x20AC;? slant, to say nothing of decor that includes an old trough ďŹ lled with greenery, one might assume the worst. But Bad Hunter is legit, and it also serves a few proteins. Dan Snowdenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s challenging cuisine, such as tempura-fried sweet potato and lemon slices with a balsamic-hazelnut sauce, renders the old lentil-and-tofu approach irrelevant forever more.

Emily Spurlinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vegan squash tart with red curry, topped with Thai-spiced cashews, coconut cream, and black sesame seeds, rejiggers familiar ďŹ&#x201A;avors in brave ways. And the sun-drenched spaceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;especially the smart bar, paved with river stones and sporting a vintage analog ampliďŹ erâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;pulses with energy. If this is a stunt, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a damn good one.

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THE WORLD’S

S E D U O L INNERGUE O L O N O M

Queen of the confessional, Samantha Irby has written about pooping her pants and getting hit on by homeless men.

Her readers can’t seem to get enough.

BY CARRIE SCHEDLER Photography by Lisa Predko

T

T

his is a story about Samantha Irbyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; blogger, author, former Evanstonian, newly minted TV executive producer.

But it is also a story about poop. Lots and lots of poop. Has to be. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Because,â&#x20AC;? she tells me over a plate of peanut-sesame noodles at LuLuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, her favorite Evanston joint, â&#x20AC;&#x153;the costar of the Sam story is my butthole.â&#x20AC;?

That particular dynamicâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the one between Irby and her buttâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;began in 2005, when she felt an intense, urgent pain in her abdomen. Her stomach was hot to the touch and puffy; out of nowhere, she started vomiting uncontrollably.

She went to the hospital and learned her intestines had begun to swell and contort, twisting like a soft pretzel. A few months later, she was delivered a diagnosis: Crohnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s disease, and an aggressive type of it.

Four years and endless colonoscopies, CT scans, brief remissions, and bouts of diarrhea later, Irby wrote about the disease for the ďŹ rst time on her nascent blog, Bitches Gotta Eat. Her post read: â&#x20AC;&#x153;welcome to my universe, lovers. where i do not get to be lovely and delicate and demure because sooner rather than later i am going to have to talk to you about shit. â&#x20AC;Ś imagine the worst diarrhea youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever had, and imagine having that nonsense every day. you could light a match on my poor rectum some days, i swear.â&#x20AC;?

She almost didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t write about it. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Man, if I do this, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m really sealing my fate as an unlovable diarrhea person, right? Because if anyone Googles me, this is gonna come up,â&#x20AC;? she recalls thinking. But once she did put it down, â&#x20AC;&#x153;no one could make me feel like shit,â&#x20AC;? she says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;And also people would know that you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the cheap

Â&#x2C6; , &&3 1 (. .) -* % ), 0 ,3 -* #Ĺ? .3* of black person, living a normal, childless life, listening to rock music, and not on crack.â&#x20AC;? toilet paper when Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m over. You gotta get the Cottonelle. Because I cannot set ďŹ re to my anus with cheap-ass toilet paper.â&#x20AC;?

It is precisely Irbyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to turn the murkiest, grossest parts of her life into unďŹ&#x201A;inchingly fearless and unhinged comedic prose that has earned her a growing following, including famous fans like writer Roxane Gay and comedian Janeane Garofalo. Irby excels at mining her own personal swamps for stories. And there are a lot of stories to tell.

Her new book, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life (May 30, Vintage), is a hodgepodge of three yearsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; worth of essays, from a mock application to appear on The Bachelorette (â&#x20AC;&#x153;Age: 35ish, but

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I could pass for forty-seven to ďŹ fty-two, easily; sixty-something if I stay up all night. Gender: passably femaleâ&#x20AC;?) to a truly epic tale that involves having explosive diarrhea, bare-assed, out of the side of a car in the middle of winter. The book is dedicated to the anxiety drug Klonopin. Her earlier book of personal essays, Meaty, which was published by Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Curbside Splendor in 2013, is now in development for an FX series starring a ďŹ ctionalized version of Irby, with Broad Cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Abbi Jacobson and Inside Amy Schumer lead writer Jessi Klein signed on as executive producers.

And yet Irby ďŹ nds herself in a strange transitional space: She recently relocated to Kalamazoo, Michigan, to be with her wife, Kirsten Jennings (Mavis in all of Irbyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s essays), after spending her entire life either in Evanston or Evanston-adjacent. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 37, with a career that is ramping up, but sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s convinced that her life is already halfway over. And if you think thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dark, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on you. Sam Irby isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t here for your shit, sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s here for her own.

I

rbyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shit started earlyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;she was raised in it.

She was born in Evanston to a 37-year-old mother who had multiple sclerosis and a 45-year-old father who was an alcoholic. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We were crazy poorâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Section 8, food stamps, Social Security, disability. But I still got to go to Evanston High School,â&#x20AC;? she says, and that has forever endeared the town to her. â&#x20AC;&#x153;A chunky, kind of outcast black girl could be there and be really into Dave Matthews, but also into Cypress Hill. I had a lot of black friends, but also a lot of white, lacrosse-playing friends.â&#x20AC;?

When Irby was young, her father drifted in and out of her life, coming back after heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d sober up, only to quickly deteriorate. In the essay â&#x20AC;&#x153;Happy Birthdayâ&#x20AC;? in her new book, Irby writes that her father brieďŹ&#x201A;y ran a boarding house, mostly ďŹ lled with fellow alcoholics, out of their basement: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Some dude died down there! It never struck me as strange because that is how my life had always been: school bus pulling up to take me to day care at the YWCA while some junkie was passed out asleep on our front lawn.â&#x20AC;?

Her father could be violent. Irby writes about accompanying him the time he threw a wrench through the windshield of the car of his â&#x20AC;&#x153;mortal enemy.â&#x20AC;? He was, she recalls, â&#x20AC;&#x153;the kind of alcoholic who, when desperate for a ďŹ x and home alone with his preadolescent daughter and an empty liquor cabinet, would soak a loaf of bread with shoe polish and drink whatever he could ďŹ lter through the loaf into a glass.â&#x20AC;? He did a lot of cocaine, she says. Sometimes heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d beat her mom.

It got so bad that Irby tried to commit suicide when she was 13.

MAKEUP: TABETHA MORRISON

Eventually, her mother’s MS worsened to the point that she needed full-time care. Her father reappeared when, the way Irby tells it, he realized that if he presented himself as a live-in caregiver, the state might subsidize his living costs. Instead of putting in a wheelchair ramp, he spent the $900 he was given on lottery tickets. His daughter was left to spoon-feed pills in applesauce every day to a mother who could no longer swallow them otherwise. Revisiting this period of her life, Irby writes, makes her heart “die a little.” She was in college (a short stint at Northern Illinois in 1998—she never graduated) when she learned her father had died of hypothermia after multiple heart attacks and strokes. Her mother died six months later.

It took Irby 11 years to pick up her father’s ashes from a North Side funeral home. After she finally retrieved them, she kept them in a Gap bag in her closet for another seven years before deciding she’d spread them in a river in Nashville while on a trip there with Jennings last year. (Her father was raised in Memphis, but Irby thought Nashville was close enough.) The old ashes had clumped together, and just as Irby was shaking them out, a sharp wind blew a fistful into her mouth. She describes the incident this way in her book: “What a fucking asshole, undoubtedly mocking me from the other side of the rainbow bridge.”

Like so many personal writing projects, Bitches Gotta Eat began as an attempt to impress a dude. “He was dating a poet at the time, and all I had was fiction I’d written, and you can’t hand someone 500 out-of-context pages and be like, ‘Fall in love with me!’ ” says Irby. So she started a Myspace page, writing during downtime at her job as a receptionist at an animal hospital in Evanston. The ploy worked, but even after the relationship soured, Irby decided to keep writing. In 2009, she turned her personal page into a blog. “It was just this thing that I could point people to if in real life I couldn’t prove to them that I was worth their attention,” she says.

“That’s, like, the saddest shit ever, but it’s real. A lot of good things have come out of my work, but I am not noble.”

These days, Irby hasn’t lost her self-effacing levity, but there are more moments of stillness between punch lines. She has written about her dad before—Meaty included a piece about how

Irby in her Kalamazoo home

he slapped her for improperly washing a castiron skillet—but her new book goes deeper. In it, Irby is unsparing in her condemnation of her father, but she also sketches a fully fleshed-out portrait of a man who struggled with addiction.

“The memories change,” says Irby. “They go from sweet to bittersweet to hostile to letting you see your parents for who they really were. I can see their flaws, and they’re both dead, so I don’t have to lie to myself anymore about who they were.”

Writing is a form of catharsis for her, but Irby rarely rereads her pieces after she finishes them. Opening old wounds is not a way of stewing, but rather a way to release herself from the pain. “People are always like, ‘Oh, that’s so brave,’ ” she says. “But I’m like, ‘It’s not brave at all—it’s freeing.’ ”

T

hings are moving quickly now for Irby.

The day we meet, she’s sleep-deprived from staying up until 3 a.m. working on scenes for the Meaty pilot. She is listed as an executive producer, and if the show gets picked up for a full season, she intends to remain (continued on page 130)

HOW TO GET

3,000 POUNDS from Reno

I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y M U T I

And other things I learned about logistics, the booming Chicago business that youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve probably never heard of but canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t live without

OF BEEF JERKY to Seattle By Michael Lenehan

J

ose Molina has a call in his headset, another on hold, and one coming in for his assistant, Enrique, who has stepped away from his desk. A trucker in the suburbs is calling to bid on a load from Libertyville to Nashville. A driver who had to pay for helpers to unload his trailer wants to be reimbursed. A truck is stuck at a weigh station in South Dakota with a cop who insists the driver doesn’t have the right permit to carry liquids. Molina juggles the calls with an assortment of canned phrases that he speaks so quickly they’re almost unintelligible: “PleaseholdIllberightwithyou.” “ThanksforholdingwhatcanIdoforyou?”

He is 31, dark and good-looking, bearded and beefy, with a huge handshake and a big grin. Dressed in a T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, he could be a trucker himself, but the rig he’s driving consists of a computer, a cell phone, two desk phones with four incoming lines, and a double monitor on which he is shuffling a bewildering variety of windows. One shows dozens of loads available from Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Another is a panel of four instant message conversations he’s having with colleagues elsewhere in the building.

Click, zoom, here’s a map of the route from Bridgeport to Tampa. And here’s a “load editor” that contains all the information he needs to complete an order: the point of origin, the destination, the contents, the weight, the packaging

(boxes? drums? pallets?), the price the customer is paying for the shipment, the amount Molina can offer the carrier, the specified pickup and delivery times. Is there anything special the driver needs to do when he arrives at the loading dock? When will the gate be open? It’s all here.

Click, zoom, here’s a profile of the carrier. How many trucks does it run and what kinds? What’s its performance record? How much insurance does it have?

Click, zoom, here’s an email from a trucking company Molina works with regularly: a list of drivers and their hopes for the next few days. Jeff in Bridgeport “needs money and miles.”

Frank in Hicksville, New York, wants to go “straight to Orlando, no questions.”

As he moves from screen to screen and phone to phone, Molina switches between English and Spanish: from “Thanks, brother” to “Perfecto, gracias,” from “Atlanta, Georgia” to “Atlonta, Yore-iya.” He can speak Spanish into the phone while typing English into a message. With a click and a tap, he copies a carrier’s number and pastes it into the load editor, then sends a confirmation email to the trucking company. Four forklifts weighing 27,000 pounds and valued at $99,000 have just been dispatched to Eagan, Minnesota.

Jeff will get his miles. No sooner does Molina finish off that arrangement with his right hand than he punches up a chortling phone line with his left.

“EnriqueslinehowcanIhelpyou?”

Truckers want loads, and Jose Molina is a guy who’s got them. He’s what they

call a senior carrier sales rep at C.H. Robinson Worldwide, a Fortune 500 company and Chicago’s biggest player in a huge industry you’ve probably never heard of: logistics—more specifically, third-party logistics, or 3PL. What is it? Maciek Nowak, an associate professor of supply chain management at Loyola’s Quinlan School of Business, likens the business to a dating service for freight: Basically, a 3PL matches shipments with carriers.

Robinson doesn’t own trucks, planes, railcars, or ships, but it arranges shipping by all these modes for more than 100,000 companies around the world. It is one of the biggest 3PLs in the country and by some estimates the biggest logistics employer in Chicago, with about 2,000 workers in eight locations in the area. The company is headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, but the “Chicago Central” office—a low, inconspicuous buff-brick building on the 1800 block of North Marcey, on the industrial western fringe of Lincoln Park—is its biggest and the flagship of its core division: North American Surface Transportation. That means trucking, mostly, and it accounts for about twothirds of Robinson’s annual revenue, which in 2015 was $13.5 billion.

Logistics, of which 3PL is just a part, is big business globally, with revenues of about $8.1 trillion in 2015, according

In an average year, C . H . Robinson coordinates the shipment of: 19 m i l l ion pu mpk i ns

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425 m i l l ion f lowers

HOW MOM GETS HER ROSES

Having gathered information from growers to gauge consumer demandâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;including preferences for long-stem versus short-stem rosesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Robinson works directly with retailers .) Ĺ?( &#4 */, " - ), ,-|

Oops! A hiccup on the U.S. delivery ( ~ ( ) ." -/**&# ,Â&#x2039;- , . #& ,- revises its order down, requiring a Robinson rep to search the Miami area for a â&#x20AC;&#x153;less than loadâ&#x20AC;? trucker.

May 7

Early April

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At a greenhouse outside MedellĂ­n, Colombia, the roses are harvested by hand and measured. (Long stems mean higher prices.)

At the same time, greenhouse workers pack the roses according to retailerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s -* #Ĺ? .#)(-~ rq .) rs ,)- - * , bouquet, two bouquets per bucket, rq / % .- * , )2|

Ă&#x152; ) #(-)( ,,# , , * )(Ĺ?,'- the temperature-control guidelines with the local trucking company taking the roses to the airport near MedellĂ­n. (Roses must be kept at around 35 degrees during transit to induce a state of dormancy.)

A Robinson rep starts looking for refrigerated trucks available in and around Miami, where the roses are due to arrive the next day.

Last truckload arrives at a Robinson warehouse in Des Plaines. Robinson arranges dispatching of small trucks to get roses to various retailers.

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The roses are unpacked, and the stems are .,#'' ), ." Ĺ?)1 ,- , , * %aged in buckets with a few inches of water in the bottom. The buckets are boxed, and ." )2 - , * && .#4 } ry * , * && .} * , the supplierâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s specs. Some roses are put in display-ready packaging at the request of one retailer.

A Robinson rep OKs the dispatching of refrigerated .,/ %- .) ." #,*),. ( )'') . - ), & 3~ " supplier wants to treat the roses with an ethylene inhibitorâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to prevent premature bloomingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;before theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re loaded onto trucks. The rep revises the shipmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ETA.

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May 10

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The roses are transported to supplierâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s refrigerated warehouse near the airport and immediately recooled to 35 degrees.

May 11

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May 8

The roses arrive at Miami International Airport, where they are inspected ), )(., ( 3 /-.)'- ) Ĺ? # &- #( special air-conditioned facility. This takes #!". .) rs ")/,-| ) #(-)( $/-.- ." schedule after learning that the inspection will take less time than expected.

74 m i l l ion sweet potatoes

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to one estimate, nearly 11 percent of the world’s gross domestic product. Chicago is an industry nexus. According to figures compiled by the development group World Business Chicago, more than a thousand logistics companies operate in the metro area, employing upward of 20,000 workers here.

Some of those workers train for the job out of college and come up through the ranks. Others migrate to the industry via unlikelier routes. Molina, the son of Mexican immigrants, got a marketing degree from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and worked as a copywriter for a few years, then came to Chicago in 2010 to break into the city’s improv comedy scene.

He figured he’d make rent by waiting tables or tending bar, but his roommate brought him to Robinson, and from the moment he saw a guy doing what Molina does now—seven things at once—he knew this was the business for him. It was like improv: the need to process multiple channels simultaneously, to listen carefully while scanning options for the next step, to recall seemingly insignificant details, to make a decision in an instant and move on.

He went through Robinson’s training program, took a seat at a desk, and on his first day answered a phone call from a one-truck operator who was looking

for a load. The driver had a brother who also owned a truck. And they both knew other guys who owned trucks. One contact led to another, and Molina began to grow a “book of business” (everyone at Robinson has one) that’s thick with trucking companies in Florida. Many of them are small operations with four or five rigs: The husband serves as dispatcher, the wife handles billing and payroll, and when their son turns 18, he gets a license and joins the fleet. Molina speaks their language and gets to know them as family. If a driver needs to be home for his kid’s birthday, Molina tries to make it happen.

Today, after five years at Robinson, he is one of Chicago Central’s top carrier reps. And because one verse of the Robinson mantra is “pay for performance” (Robinson people tend to avoid the term “commission”), he is also one of Chicago’s most comfortable improv comedians. (His team, Big Spoon, performs three or four times a month at the iO Theater on Kingsbury Street.)

W

hen you first enter Chicago Central, it seems sedate. But behind the reception desk, beyond a pair of formidable wood doors, a vast, high-ceilinged room thrums with the activity of about 900 people—row upon row of cubicle desks, monitors, headsets, and workers as far as the eye can see. They are mostly young, all shapes and colors, dressed up for an after-work rendezvous in Bucktown or down for an afternoon

game at Wrigley Field. It doesn’t seem to matter.

About 50 yards from Molina’s desk, on the other side of the room and the other end of the 3PL equation, sits Cailie Furlong, 24, a graduate of the University of Iowa who started at Robinson as a summer intern and signed on for good about two years ago. She’s a customer sales rep. While Molina deals with trucking companies, she deals with companies that need trucks. Right now she’s got an email from a food bank in Oregon that wants to send 40,000 pounds of carrots to another food bank in Arizona. Using the same computer platform Molina does, she looks up the route—the “lane,” they call it—and sees it’s about 1,200 miles, a little more than 30 hours. (That’s taking into account federal regulations requiring drivers to take 10 hours off after 11 on the road.)

She knows this job will necessitate a refrigerated truck—the carrots will survive the trip if kept around 35 degrees.

She sends an instant message requesting a price quote to a Robinson desk that specializes in refrigerated shipments.

A few minutes later, she gets a reply telling her what Robinson would have to pay for the load, based on its carrier contracts. Furlong picks up a calculator, figures a markup, and adds a little bit as risk insurance because Oregon has been buried in snow. She emails her quote to the food bank, gets back an acceptance, and enters the particulars into the system. The carrot order will pop up on a list of available shipments, and one of Molina’s colleagues on the carrier side will see it and find a truck. Or maybe a trucking company dispatcher will log on to Robinson’s web system and

ICONS: THE NOUN PROJECT

see it there. Or a driver will see it on Robinson’s smartphone app for carriers. In any event, Furlong is already on to the next thing, an email from a customer who wants to ship a few 580-pound pallets of beef jerky from Nevada to Washington State. What rate shall she apply? She pulls up a beef jerky density calculator.

Meanwhile, in the middle of the immense room, near where the bosses sit, the “business intelligence group”— a team of 11 analysts, data scientists, and process engineers—sift through crop reports, weather data, economic projections, and the thick veins of information buried in the thousands of orders that Robinson processes each day, looking for trends or problems or developments that might affect the business. When will melons ripen this year? If spring comes early, trucks will need to be moved toward the fields.

What’s the outlook for housing starts?

If it picks up, many drivers will shift to construction work and shipping rates will have to increase. Is Ford going to open those plants in Mexico or not? Why are so many trucks going to Phoenix this week?

And so it goes all day long, the customer reps on one side, the carrier reps on the other, the big-picture guys in the middle, and connecting them all a fast and enormously powerful software platform on which more than 14,000 employees spread over five continents can see the details of any shipment in the system. Robinson deals in invisible things: service and software—or, as the company likes to say, “people, processes, and technology.”

In a word, it’s a network. The freight Robinson handles doesn’t come within miles of this office; typically, it is not touched or even seen by any employee. Yet you can stand in the middle of the room, between the shippers and the truckers, and almost feel the stuff of the nation humming through the ether: carrots and beef jerky, steel and elevator parts, candy and sports drinks, furniture, flowers, and footwear—about a billion dollars’ worth of goods every week.

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hicago has been a transportation hub since the last glaciers retreated about 13,000 years ago, leaving the Chicago Portage at what is now roughly 31st Street. There, Native Americans could carry their canoes from the South Branch of the Chicago River to the easternmost lick of the Des Plaines, thus connecting the Great Lakes with the Mississippi River and points south and west. Today Chicago is one of the few places in the country where the great rail networks of the east, the Norfolk Southern and CSX, meet those of the west, the BNSF and Union Pacific, as well as the rail lines from Canada. And

carried your goods would likely have to “deadhead” home with an empty trailer.

Deregulation eliminated a lot of the rules and made it easier for new companies to get into the trucking business.

As the number of carriers mushroomed, a new class of brokers, 3PLs, sprang up to connect them with shippers and fill those empty trailers with “backhauls.” At the same time, computers were entering the picture, Japanese automakers were schooling U.S. manufacturers in techniques like “just in time” delivery of parts and materials, and a vast pool of cheap labor was opening overseas, creating an unprecedented demand for the transportation of goods and materials from abroad.

By the late ’90s, a pioneering Chicago firm called American Backhaulers had

Stand in the middle of the room, and you can feel the stuff of the nation humming through the ether: carrots and candy, steel and elevator parts, furniture and flowers—a billion dollars’ worth of goods every week.

the Chicago area (including northwest Indiana) is served by more primary interstate highways—the ones with one- and two-digit names—than any other city. All in all, according to the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, a fourth of the freight shipped in the United States starts in, stops at, or passes through Chicago. That the city became a major center of the logistics industry is a natural extension.

Third-party logistics barely existed 40 years ago. Before 1980, trucking was strictly regulated by the federal government. If you wanted to ship mattresses, say, from Chicago to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, your choice of carriers would be limited, their rates would all be the same, and the truck that

331 m i l l ion water melons

developed software to match trucks with loads and had attracted a talented bunch of strivers who dominate the 3PL business here to this day.

Founded in 1905 in North Dakota as a broker of fresh produce, C.H. Robinson was already a behemoth of the trucking industry by this time. Because their cargo was perishable, produce truckers were exempt from most of the regulation that held back the rest of the industry. So Robinson had a huge head start in the business of brokering trucks and matching loads. Employee-owned since the mid-1970s, it went public in 1997. Two years later, it acquired American Backhaulers for what now seems like a paltry $136 million. Since (continued on page 138)

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FOR CHRIS CHACKO, THE MOST SOUGHT-AFTER ROASTER ON CHICAGO’S DINING SCENE, BREWING THE PERFECT CUP IS A SACRED GASTRONOMIC QUEST—ONE NOT EVERYONE IS INVITED TO JOIN.

By CARRIE SCHEDLER Photography by LUCY HEWETT

AUGUST 24, 2016 , IS THE DAY

Starbucks was forever ruined for me. That’s when I met Chris Chacko. The 48-year-old owner of Sparrow Coffee Roastery had arranged a tasting for me at the company’s West Loop headquarters. On a waist-high wood table in Sparrow’s warehouseslash-roastery-slash-office stood an array of coffee-making paraphernalia: French presses, hourglass-shaped Chemex brewers, porcelain Hario V60s that fit snugly over a mug and brew one filtered cup at a time. Chacko, wearing jeans and a trilby hat, was standing on the other side of the table and speaking in measured tones—a professor delivering a lecture to yet another misshapen freshman mind.

“What I’m going to show you today is what I do for every chef that comes in here,” he said before proceeding to prepare the first sample, using one of the V60s.

Chacko handed me a cup of coffee made from beans grown on a 3,000-foot-high plateau in Brazil, and I took a sip. The flavor was rich and round and redolent of cocoa nibs. Very good, but not wildly out of the ordinary.

The second cup contained an Ethiopian varietal made from heirloom beans. Chacko introduced this coffee by saying, “This is equivalent to the food at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes.

Then I took a sip.

Chacko smiled and said, “Blueberries. Very clean, very precise.”

Yep. The flavor was unmistakable.

“But now add some sugar.

Notice how the flavor shifts.”

He passed me a wooden bowl of raw turbinado sugar. I mixed in a couple of spoonfuls.

I sipped, and Chacko smiled once more. “Citrus.”

Right again. Suddenly all I could taste was the sweet-tart pucker of oranges, so intense I could almost feel my tooth enamel deteriorating. Then he passed me a carton of Kemps half-and-half. I swirled in a hearty glug.

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“Now what do you taste?” he asked. I sipped and my eyes widened.

“Blueberries,” I said. “Again.”

“Exactly.” The half-and-half had coated my palate, Chacko explained, stamping out the acidity, and the exotic blueberry flavor of those Ethiopian beans was all that remained.

“We look at coffee as the leaves of a fall tree,” he said. “All those colors are there throughout the tree’s life, but you only see them in the fall, when the chlorophyll dies and the green goes away. What we’re doing is taking the green away so you can see the beauty.”

And just like that, I was a believer.

CHRIS CHACKO THINKS ABOUT

coffee differently from the rest of us. He sees it as others see wine: something rarefied and complex, an elixir to be tasted and savored and understood for the way it interacts with the elements of a meal. He is Chicago’s high priest

Chacko at the West Loop warehouse of Sparrow Coffee Roastery, which supplies about 250 restaurants, mostly in town

of coffee, and he counts among his acolytes the best and most innovative restaurateurs in town, from Paul Kahan at the Publican to the doughnut wizards at Glazed and Infused. His espresso is served at Monteverde; his coffee spikes a dessert at 42 Grams.

Four of Chicago’s 10 best new restaurants (see page 80), including top spot Oriole, use Sparrow coffee. Chacko told me that when Michael Muser of Grace—speaking of three Michelin stars—did the same tasting I did, he laughed in disbelief and then asked for a contract then and there.

But not just anyone can serve Chacko’s coffee. He has turned down roughly half the restaurateurs who have approached him—not because his eightemployee company can’t handle the volume but because Chacko doesn’t think highly enough of the food at those establishments. For those who make the cut, Chacko goes to great lengths to please.

Every one of the roughly 250

CHRIS CHACKOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S FOUR-POINT PLAN FOR BETTER HOMEBREWED COFFEE 1 WEIGH YOUR COFFEE Using a scale to measure by weight is more precise than eyeballing for volume, and that precision is essential for achieving the right extraction, says Chacko.

2 USE AN AEROPRESS This compact plunger-based system (around $30) yields a concentrated brew that you can dilute to your liking. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very straightforward and makes excellent coffee.â&#x20AC;?

3 LET YOUR CUP COOL Our palates arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t designed to taste coffee at 180 degrees, the temperature at which most coffeehouse brews are served. Give it a minute or two; 160 degrees is ideal. â&#x20AC;&#x153;As the coffee cools, acidity gives way to the beansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; inherent sweetness.â&#x20AC;?

4 TRY IT BLACK FIRST With good-quality coffee, you want to taste the purity of the beans and brew before adding cream or sugar, which can )0 , '*&# 3 ,. #( Ĺ? 0),- ( . '* )1( others. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll start to appreciate how beautiful coffee can be.â&#x20AC;?

I LLU S TR ATION S BY JOH N KE NZI E

restaurants that Sparrow does business with (almost all of which are in and around Chicago, with a few out in California) gets its own unique coffee, custom-roasted by Chacko and calibrated to pair harmoniously with the restaurantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s culinary approach.

The single-origin Mexican coffee at Rick Baylessâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s West Loop restaurant LeĂąa Brava is a dark roast from which Chacko has vaporized all the smoke, a byproduct of roasting that often imparts a woodsy ďŹ&#x201A;avor; when you add a little cream and sugar, the brew blossoms into an approximation of cinnamon-spiked Mexican hot chocolate. Thomas Lents, the former chef at River Northâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sixteen, favored the blueberryforward Ethiopian coffee for one of his high-concept tasting menus.

Abraham Conlon of Fat Rice in Logan Square chose a wickedly robust blend that could stand up to a palate numbed by the tingly hot Sichuan peppercorns ďŹ&#x201A;avoring many of his dishes.

As of now, restaurants are the only places where you can taste Chackoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coffee, though the Sparrow website and a few of Chackoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s favorite placesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Mexican darling Quiote (see page 85) and sunny ďŹ sh-curing cafĂŠ Snaggletooth, for instanceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;sell 12-ounce bags. This summer, Sparrowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ďŹ rst coffeehouse will open in Naperville; there are plans for a second one in the city to follow.

Several restaurateurs I talked to described occasionally bewildering encounters with Chacko.

When Snaggletooth opened, Chacko would pop by regularly and ask owner Bill Montagne to make him a coffee; then heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d offer advice unbidden. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was selfconscious about itâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a chef, not a barista,â&#x20AC;? says Montagne. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d give me pointers: pour this way; youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re doing this wrong. And heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d tell me not just how to do it right, but how he could tell, just from tasting, what I was doing wrong.â&#x20AC;? One day Chacko came in, tried Snaggletoothâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nitro cold brewâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a kegged coffee that pours like a beerâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and then texted a day

later to say that heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d been thinking about it and that Montagne needed to up the pressure on the keg.

Chacko, who emigrated from India with his family when he was 7, knows of what he speaks. He has been roasting coffee beans since he was 18, when he built his own roaster in his parentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Elmhurst garage using plans he found in a library book. His fascination with coffee was born of deprivation. His mother was allergic to the stuffâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d break out in hives if she drank it,â&#x20AC;? he saysâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;so it was never around the house.

Chacko, who claims coffee has never affected his sleep, lives alone in a River North apartment and begins his day at 5:30 a.m. by grabbing his laptop to pull up the automated reports generated by Sparrowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s $200,000 Loring roasting machine, which captures and records data points for airďŹ&#x201A;ow, temperature, and four other parameters at six-second intervals.

He saves these reports indeďŹ nitely, referring to them during tastings to pinpoint tiny ďŹ&#x201A;uctuations that might explain a particular nuance in strength or ďŹ&#x201A;avor.

Case in point: A few years back, he noticed a subtle black pepper note in a wild Ethiopian brew. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a note you rarely detect in coffee.

He couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t ďŹ gure out how it had gotten there and wanted to be able to replicate it in the rest of the roasts he did with those particular beans. On the report, he noticed a variation in temperature, just 10 seconds longâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;likely due to a minor adjustment heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d made at the time but hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t noted. He programmed his roaster to repeat that change.

Boom. Black pepper in every batch.

Chacko is all about precision. He evaluates every brew he makes using the 100-point scoring system adopted by the Specialty Coffee Association, grading cups on factors such as aroma and acidity and making sure his employees come to the exact same score as he has at the end of a tasting.

His dedication leaves room for little else. He used to build and ďŹ&#x201A;y kites and go running in his spare time. Now, though, when he isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t working, he is mostly M AY

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dining out. Which is also work.

He visits at least one restaurant a day, vetting potential clients and making pairing notes for existing ones. (His single-day record: a tasting menu at Grace, followed by another at Oriole, followed by a burger at the Loyalist.)

Chackoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s epicurean zeal can verge on the monomaniacal.

On several occasions during my visits with him, I tried to steer the conversation to topics other than coffee and cuisine, to no avail. The exchange would simply sputter out, and before I realized it, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be back to, say, the merits of a particular Michelin-starred restaurant.

When it comes to evaluating the quality of a restaurant, Chacko grades meals the way he does coffee, using a 100-point scale, in this case one he created. An 86 is equivalent to one Michelin star, an 88 to two stars, a 91 or higher to three.

After dining, he often takes to Twitter to share his thoughtsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; both good (â&#x20AC;&#x153;Table Donkey Stick has evolved to a level of intrigue & sophistication w/subtle French Canadian inďŹ&#x201A;uences that elevate throughoutâ&#x20AC;?) and bad (â&#x20AC;&#x153;Kitsune is plagued with executional errors throughout & has no resemblance whatsoever to the food of a Michelin starred chefâ&#x20AC;?).

Over dinner recently at the nouveau steakhouse Maple &

Ash in the Gold Coast, Chacko explained his philosophy to me. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You cannot have emotion involved,â&#x20AC;? he said emphatically as rib eyes were placed before us. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Subjectivity is an excuse people make to mitigate errors. Because our evaluations of things have to be calibrated, or things fall apart.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;COFFEEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S He gestured at his plate. â&#x20AC;&#x153;What we look for in steak, ďŹ rst, is technique. THE MOST Is this cooked properly? Howâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the COMPLEX BEVERAGE temperature? Then we cut into it.

KNOWN TO What kind of meat is it? Can you tell that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s prime?â&#x20AC;? He took a bite HUMANITY. and chewed. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Then you look for IT HAS TWICE nuancesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;here I get some herbaAS MANY ceousnessâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but the key deďŹ ning FLAVORfactor is, is it memorable?â&#x20AC;?

PRODUCING Even a dishâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s memorability, INGREDIENTS though, can be objectively evaluAS RED WINE.â&#x20AC;? ated in Chackoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world. He took another bite of the steak, pondered for a moment, and then handed down his verdict. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This dish is at least an 85, maybe even an 86. Because if I were to come here tomorrow and taste this, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be able to tell it was [executive chef] Danny Grantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s version of steak, with all the ďŹ re elements.

It may need a sauce, though, and for it to be an 88, it would need a creative aspect other than simply technique.â&#x20AC;?

Chacko believes in ďŹ&#x201A;avor as science, not art, something to be technically executed in pointby-point increments. Which, as I told him, happens to be the exact

opposite of how I think about food.

For me, and the average diner, eating is about sensual pleasure; assigning a score, as if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re some kind of culinary gymnastics judge, takes all the fun out of it. But while Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m searching for emotional resonance, Chacko is seeking some kind of objective perfection.

In Chackoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s utopia, every restaurant criticâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reviews would include numerical scores, and every course of a mealâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;not dessert onlyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;would be paired with coffee. He doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to just echo the ďŹ&#x201A;avors youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve already tasted in a meal; he wants you to have the perfect coffee for that roast chicken dish as you eat it. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Coffeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the most complex beverage known to humanity,â&#x20AC;? he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It has twice as many ďŹ&#x201A;avorproducing ingredients as red wine.â&#x20AC;? A chocolaty Brazilian coffee can work well with hamburgers or chicken, he explains, while something like that fruity Ethiopian brew might go well with ďŹ sh and lightly blanched vegetables.

For now, though, Chacko must content himself with ďŹ nding the perfect coffee for the culmination of a meal, the consummate coda to a particular progression of dishes and ďŹ&#x201A;avors, since none of Sparrowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s clients are proposing coffee in the middle of dinnerâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;yet. â&#x20AC;&#x153;IT WAS LIKE, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;PFFT, NO

contest,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;? says David Posey of the decision to serve Sparrow coffee at

TASTING NOTES Ă&#x20AC; LA CHACKO Chicago asked the roasting maestro to do a blind tasting of seven store-bought coffees and rate them using the Specialty Coffee Associationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 100-point scoring system. The association deems anything above a 70 â&#x20AC;&#x153;very goodâ&#x20AC;? and above an 80 â&#x20AC;&#x153;excellent.â&#x20AC;? In his own coffee, Chacko wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t use any beans that get less than an 80.

Intelligentsia House Blend

Starbucks Pike Place Roast

Dark Matter A Love Supreme

Dunkinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Donuts Original Blend

$14 for 12 oz.

Score 86 â&#x20AC;&#x153;A winy, beautiful coffee. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not keen on the aftertaste, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wonderfully balanced.â&#x20AC;?

$13 for 16 oz.

Score 82.25 Â&#x2C6; "#- #- Ĺ?(#. &3 dark roast, but as dark roasts go, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s OK. It hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been totally carbonized. It might make a good espresso

$15 for 12 oz.

Score 82 Â&#x2C6; " Ĺ? 0), #- /( ,Â&#x2019; developed, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s well balanced.

$7 for 12 oz.

Score 80.50 â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a nice light green note, but this roast is underdeveloped, too. These must be the oldest beans in the bunch.â&#x20AC;?

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Allegro Organic Whole Foods Blend $12 for 12 oz.

Score 79.25 â&#x20AC;&#x153;All you taste is darkness. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s some lactic acid for a pleasant mouthfeel, but the aftertaste is not pleasant.â&#x20AC;?

Trader Joeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Joe Blend

La Colombe Corsica

$5 for 14 oz.

Score 70 â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a subtle blueberry note hereâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; you can tell these beans are Ethiopian.

Unfortunately, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re old, and the roaster theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re using is too full.â&#x20AC;?

$12 for 12 oz.

Score 67 â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s extremely old, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s carbonized. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all you can taste.â&#x20AC;?

Elske, the Scandinavian-inďŹ&#x201A;ected restaurant he opened last year on Randolph Street with his wife, Anna. The three of us are standing in Sparrowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s warehouse for a tasting. Like me, David and Anna have been here before. Between their ďŹ rst Sparrow tasting and this one, they visited a few other roasters and quickly came to the conclusion that Sparrow was in a different league. Today, Chacko is determined to get the Poseys to decide on a custom blend for Elske.

In their ďŹ rst session, they gravitated toward both an earthy Sumatran roast and an acidic Colombian varietalâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x153;completely opposite coffees,â&#x20AC;? Chacko says with a hint of exasperation. He now has two new ones in mind.

The ďŹ rst is a Brazilian Catuai with light hints of chocolate and lots of acidityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;ideal for Annaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s creamy, ďŹ&#x201A;oral-tinged desserts.

Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d sampled it a few days prior and had been blown away by its delicate balance of ďŹ&#x201A;avors and aromas, but heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still waiting on a new shipment. For now, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have the Poseys taste a similar Brazilian coffee alongside a Yemeni one and the Colombian and Sumatran ones they liked last time.

Chacko delivers his professorial preamble: â&#x20AC;&#x153;What Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going to do is cup these for you like we would on a farm, deciding whether to order the beans.â&#x20AC;?

He has placed four small white ceramic bowls in a circle on the wood tableâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;one for each of the four varietals. Each bowl contains exactly 12.5 grams of ground beans and will be ďŹ lled with just enough hot water to result in a 21.25 percent extraction (basically, the amount of ďŹ&#x201A;avor the beans are allowed to release). This simple, unďŹ ltered method, says Chacko,

Chacko with Sparrowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s $200,000 roasting machine, which logs temperature, #,Ĺ?)1} ( )." , . points every -#2 - )( -

gives the most direct taste of the bean, because a coffeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ďŹ&#x201A;avor can change depending on how itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brewed. Coffee made in a French press, for example, tends to have more body because more coffee solids make it into the cup than with a paper-ďŹ ltered brew.

Chacko adds the hot water.

Grounds rise to the top of each bowl, forming a crust. We wait precisely four minutes, and then Chacko hands the Poseys spoons and instructs the couple to dip them in, stir three times counterclockwise, and sniff. We wait eight minutes more, to let the coffee cool to optimum tasting temperature.

Anna starts with the Brazilian Catuai. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I would say itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chocolaty?â&#x20AC;? A hint of uncertainty creeps into her voice. Chacko nods.

The Yemeni coffee is as delicate as a ďŹ ne tea. David is enthralled by a lingering impression of berries in the Colombian. The Sumatran offers hints of coriander and baking spices. But when it comes to which will pair best with Elskeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cuisine, the Poseys seem unable to decide.

So Chacko makes a few decisions for them. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Sumatran you tasted is great, but I think itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s too abrasive to go with Davidâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s food,â&#x20AC;? he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a steak, lamb, red meat sort of coffee.â&#x20AC;? Also out is the Colombian, which Chacko worries might clash too much with Annaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dairy-rich desserts.

Now Chacko adds an equal amount of the Brazilian and the Colombian to a Chemex brewer and pulls two cups. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s so drinkable,â&#x20AC;? Anna says. Chacko makes a few more blends, but after two hours of sniffing and sipping, the Poseys leave still undecided. Two months later, they settle on a Colombian blend.

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve sampled itâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;with Elskeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rye bread pudding topped with quince sorbetâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and it had what Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d call a fudgy aroma, and tasted a little bit fruity. I ask Chacko later what I should have been detecting. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Cocoa nib. Raspberry,â&#x20AC;? he says.

Close enough.

I do know for certain that it ďŹ t the meal perfectly. O M AY

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Interviews by Matt Pollock

entur

Photography by Sandro

Faces of

They have lived through the 1919 race riot, the Capone era, and seven Cubs trips to the World Series.

Meet these Chicago-area centenarians.

Evelyn Wettour, 100 Downers Grove Born in Lafayette, Indiana, she moved to Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Douglas Park neighborhood in 1926. She learned shorthand in high school and started working as a private secretary at age 17. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was a bit ahead of my time. When I got married, my husband said, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Do you have to work?â&#x20AC;&#x2122; I said, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;I sure )|Â&#x2039; &)0 1),%#(!|Â&#x2030; , Ĺ?,-. "/- ( died, and she remarried at 72. Her second husband lived to 101.

SECRET TO A LONG LIFE â&#x20AC;&#x153;Cod-liver oil. I watched Paul Harvey on TV when I was in my 40s, and he said, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Ladies, I want you to get some cod-liver oil capsules and take two a day.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; All these years and not one pain in my body.â&#x20AC;?

BEST ADVICE EVER RECEIVED â&#x20AC;&#x153;Be truthful. If you arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t, it will come back to haunt you.â&#x20AC;?

BEST PART OF GETTING OLDER â&#x20AC;&#x153;At this age, you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have any taxes to pay.â&#x20AC;?

Luong Hoan, 103 Wheaton They call her Grandma at Napervilleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Xilin Asian Community Center, where she plays mahjong four days a week. Born in Guangdong, China, Hoan moved to Vietnam with her husband, a factory owner. After he died, -" Ĺ? ." 1 ,Â&#x2019;.),( )/(.,3 .) )(! )(!| She eventually followed her son to Ohio in the 1970s, then moved to Chicago because of its community of Chinese immigrants.

BEST PART OF GETTING OLDER â&#x20AC;&#x153;Having lots of children and grandchildren. They obey me and are very respectful.â&#x20AC;?

SECRET TO A LONG LIFE An apple a day, cut up into quarters. No medicine.

And Chinese cabbage.

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Hawkins Fairley, 103 Ashburn Raised in Mississippi and Louisiana, this World War II vet came to Chicago with his wife in 1949 to escape the Jim Crow South but found discrimination here, too. “A dark-skinned person didn’t get the same kind of money as a white person. And a black man couldn’t get himself a white woman. They’d take you out back and shoot you.” Fairley spent 30 years at U.S. Steel’s South Works plant in South Chicago. “We were making steel for Cadillacs, Buicks, Oldsmobiles. Now all them jobs are gone.”

WORST PART OF GETTING OLDER “You can’t work.”

BEST ADVICE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE “Own a house in your own name. Long as you’ve got them bills paid, can’t nobody take it from you.”

Beatrice Hughes, 102 Hyde Park This single mother moved from Louisiana to Chicago in 1931 and worked as a typist to support her daughters. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My mother thought I should learn to do something other than run with the boys, so she - (. ' .) & ,( .) .3* | 1 - )(&3 rx 1" ( '3 Ĺ?,-. daughter was born, and soon I had two children to raise. Their father sneaked out from us. But as long - ." .", ) /- 1 , .)! ." ,} 1 - - .#-Ĺ? |Â&#x2030; BEST ADVICE EVER RECEIVED Â&#x2C6;Ć&#x201C;Â&#x160; ) .) Ă&#x160;"# !)|Â&#x2039; . 1 - !)) *& ), -)' ) 3 3)/(! .) Ĺ?( 1),%|Â&#x2030; SECRET TO A LONG LIFE â&#x20AC;&#x153;Have your children young and grow up with them.â&#x20AC;?

FAVORITE MEMORY OF OLD CHICAGO â&#x20AC;&#x153;Roller-skating at the Savoy Ballroom and White City on the South Side. I loved skating. I wonder sometimes if I could still do it.â&#x20AC;?

Andy Medema, 100 Downers Grove This Hollander immigrated with his family at age 5, settling in a Dutch enclave on the Southwest Side. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They changed my name from Nonko because they didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want me to go through school with it. Back then, Taylor Street was Caponeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s big street. When one of his !/3- # } 3)/Â&#x2039; - )/, ), Ĺ?0 /( , & ,- !)#(! through the neighborhood.â&#x20AC;? Medema fell in love with the Cubs as a boy, listening to games on the radio. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d go to the park on Saturdays for 25 cents. I can still name ." )/.Ĺ? & ,-~ % #&-)(} #!!- . *" (-)(} ( #%# Ă&#x160;/3& ,|Â&#x2030; " & -& 1 ) $) -~ )*} .),3 1),% ,} streetcar conductor, middle school maintenance worker.

At his assisted living center, they call him the Mayor.

SECRET TO A LONG LIFE â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve spent my entire life with young peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;coaching, refereeing, driving a school bus.

They keep you active.â&#x20AC;?

BEST ADVICE EVER RECEIVED Â&#x2C6; * 3)/, ()- & (|Â&#x2030;

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Othon Guasso, 105 West Ridge Born to a tailor in Hidalgo during the Mexican Revolution, Guasso learned the family trade young. During World War II, he worked in California, stitching American military uniforms.

After the war, he returned to Mexico and opened his own suit shop. Guasso moved to Chicago in rzxt} )&&)1#(! "#- -)(Â&#x2039;- '#&3 .) ."#, Â&#x2019;Ĺ?)), rental in Logan Square. He worked as a tailor into his late 70s, cutting fabric at a store on Michigan Avenue and then stitching police uniforms at a shop on Roosevelt Road. Longevity is in his ! ( -~ #- )1( ." , &#0 .) rqr| SECRET TO A LONG LIFE A taste of cognac a day. And live a life free of stress.

FIRST MEMORY OF CHICAGO â&#x20AC;&#x153;Estaba frio.â&#x20AC;?

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Lester Goodman, 101 Bronzeville )) ' (} 1") " &* )/( ." #(Ĺ?/ (.# & Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre, was born and raised on the South Side. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I lived at 5208 South LaSalle. At that time, there was a wall along LaSalle that separated the black and white families.â&#x20AC;? He studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before switching to dance. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was in Hammersteinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Carmen Jones in New York. And I met Sinatra and the Rat Pack. We worked the same circuit. I was traveling a lot, away from the family, but my wife told me, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Go do your thing, because I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want you to look back and think, If it hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been ), ." '} Â&#x2039; ( ,|Â&#x2039;Ć&#x201C;Â&#x2030; BEST ADVICE EVER RECEIVED â&#x20AC;&#x153;Never believe anything anyone says and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll never be disappointed.â&#x20AC;?

SECRET TO A LONG LIFE â&#x20AC;&#x153;Eat right and get plenty of rest. I never started drinking until my 50s.â&#x20AC;?

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GO 68 GREAT THINGS TO DO THIS MONTH

BY JASON FOUMBERG, JOHN HARDBERGER, BRITT JULIOUS, GRAHAM MEYER, CATEY SULLIVAN, AND LAUREN WARNECKE

Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg (page 127)

Through May 21 ART

Whistler’s Mother: An American Icon Returns to Chicago Loop It’s your last chance to catch one of the world’s most recognizable masterpieces, Whistler’s famed portrait of his mom, before it goes back to Paris.

In person, the painting of the woman in black is downright staggering. Rendered life-size and in stoic relief, she remains a monumental symbol of the patience of motherhood. Details Art Institute of Chicago. $14–$25. artic.edu

Through June 3 ART

A New Look Wicker Park Monique Meloche Gallery’s semiregular showcase of figurative art is known as a breeding ground for hotshot artists. This year’s crop includes Sadie Barnette, Anna Bjerger, Jessica Campbell, Zoë Charlton, Chitra Ganesh, Jillian Mayer, and Caroline Wells Chandler. Details Monique Meloche Gallery. Free. moniquemeloche.com

Through June 10 ART

Jim Dine West Town The legendary pop artist came to prominence with bold paintings of giant hearts. Entering his mature artistic phase, Dine shifts to drippy, emotional, and intensely colorful abstract paintings in this inaugural show at Richard Gray’s converted warehouse gallery. Details Richard Gray Gallery.

Free. richardgraygallery.com

PHOTOGRAPHY: (EIFMAN BALLET OF ST. PETERSBURG) EVGENY MATVEEV; (GERVAIS) LIZ O. BAYLEN/LOS ANGELES TIMES; (RENT ) CAROL ROSEGG

Through June 18 ART

Klein/Olson Hyde Park Nestled behind the U. of C.’s leafy quad, the Renaissance Society has become an incubator for global contemporary art. In its last show of the season, Germany’s Astrid Klein and Chicago’s B. Ingrid Olson identify an intergenerational trend in moody conceptual portraiture and collages. Details Renaissance Society. Free. renaissancesociety.org

Through August 6 ART

Candida Alvarez: Here Loop See page 43. Details Chicago Cultural Center.

Free. cityofchicago.org

May 1 ROCK

The xx

Ricky Gervais (page 128) Rent (page 122)

Uptown Earlier this year, the English rockers released I See You, a bright, hopeful departure from their trademark dreariness. Brighter, too, are the band members’ personal lives: Frontman Jamie Smith has forged a solo career as a DJ, Romy Madley Croft got engaged to the British designer Hannah Marshall, and Oliver Sim sobered up. Expect a jubilant live show from a band transformed. Details Aragon Ballroom.

6:30 p.m. Sold out; see resellers.

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May 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Aug. 13 ART

En Masâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;: Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean Washington Park On the Caribbean islands, Carnival takes the form of a rambunctious street circus where revelers wear masks and costumes in a last gasp of hedonism before Lent. The curators of this exhibit reveal how art meets life in the Carnival parade, including Ebony Pattersonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s adorned coffins and Cauleen Smithâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s New Orleansâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;inspired jazz dirge.

Details DuSable Museum of African American History. $3â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$10. dusablemuseum.org

May 2 HIP-HOP

Desiigner Lake View The rare rapper who sounds better live than on a record, this mumbly Brooklyn native dominated the charts in 2016 with his debut single, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Panda.â&#x20AC;?

Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s got a debut LP, The Life of Desiigner, slated for later this year, so consider this show a ďŹ&#x201A;eeting opportunity to see him in an intimate club setting. Details Vic Theatre. 7:30 p.m. $25â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$30. .# % .Ĺ?3| )'

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))*Ă&#x2039; The New York dance company returns to the Harris Theater, this time with a contemporary ballet titled The Wanderer. The evening-length narrative promises to transport audiences to a surreal world with choreography and visual design set to a Schubert song cycle.Details Harris " . ,| x~tqĂ&#x2039;*|'|Ă&#x2039;ÂĽtvÂ&#x201C;ÂĽrsv| harristheaterchicago.org

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Chicago Academy for the ArtsÂ

))*Ă&#x2039; Hit the food trucks on lower Randolph before venturing into Mix at Six, the Harris Theaterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cocktail-hour performance series.

This installment features the next generation of professional dancers under the direction of Chicago legend Randy Duncan. Details Harris " . ,|Ă&#x2039;w *|'| ÂĽrq| harristheaterchicago.org

May 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;9 CLASSICAL

Brahmsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 Loop Romantic-era pillar Johannes Brahms excelled at just about every classical formâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;chamber, choral, songs, solo pianoâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;so he had time for only four symphonies. Fortunately, they can be crammed into two concert programs, which Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Riccardo Muti does during his spring residency. The cathartic No. 1 and sunny No. 2 come ďŹ rst. Details Symphony Center. $45â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$165. cso.org

May 5 POETRY

Carrie Olivia Adams Near North Side The International Museum of Surgical Scienceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s artist residency is probably one of the strangest

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;>LM <NLMHF LNBM in the city, offering full access to the museumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s archives of medical artifacts and specimens. This seasonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s resident, a poet known for her uncanny sensibility, debuts a multimedia dance, music, and text work created in response to womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s roles in medical innovation. Details International Museum of Surgical Science. 6 p.m. $7â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$15. imss.org

May 5â&#x20AC;&#x201C;6 FESTIVAL

Chicago Zine Fest Various neighborhoods Chicago is home to a teeming ecosystem of self-publishers, indie cartoonists, and outsider poets, many of whom dutifully produce their own zines. This annual fest is a one-stop shop for quirky quarterlies, oddball pamphlets, and original comics, all handcrafted by local artists and makers. Details Various venues. Free. chicagozinefest.org

May 5 and 7 CLASSICAL

Bach Week

PHOTOGRAPH: ANTHONY SOUFFLE/CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Evanston, North Park The 44th annual celebration of classical musicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s founding father presents pieces familiar and rare for its closing weekend. The May 5 concert pulls out his Cello Suite No. 2, a polestar for the instrument. The May 7 concert radiates from the 11-movement, ďŹ ve-part choral motet Jesu, Meine Freude. Details May 5: Nichols Concert Hall at Music Institute of Chicago in Evanston; May 7: Anderson Chapel at North Park University. $10â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$30 per concert; $20â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$80 fest pass. bachweek.org

May 5â&#x20AC;&#x201C;July 1 ART

Kilimanjaro: The Last Glacier Near North Side The worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rare tropical glaciers are on a course to extinction in the next decade, including Tanzaniaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Mount Kilimanjaro glacier. Photographer Ian van Coller accompanied climate scientists on expeditions to study the melting ice; the result is an oversize book (three by four feet) as weighty as the urgent topic itself. Details Schneider Gallery. Free. schneidergallerychicago.com

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))*Ă&#x2039; Recognized nationally for its preprofessional dance training, Ballet Chicago toasts its 20th anniversary with works by George Balanchine and the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s founder, Dan Duell. Also on the bill: a world premiere from Frank Chaves, the onetime artistic director of River North Dance Chicago. Details ,,#- " . ,|Ă&#x2039;sĂ&#x2039; ( x~tqĂ&#x2039;*|'| ÂĽsvÂ&#x201C;ÂĽvq|Ă&#x2039;harristheaterchicago.org

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Polish Constitution Day Parade Loop On May 3, 1791, Poland formed the ďŹ rst constitutional democracy in Europeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;second in the world after the United States. Naturally, Chicago hosts the biggest Constitution Day celebration this side of the motherland. For its 126th run, the parade gets a ritzy new route down Columbus Drive. Details Grant Park. 11:30 a.m.

Free. may3parade.org

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May 6â&#x20AC;&#x201C;7 EXPERIMENTAL

Laurie Anderson Lincoln Square In 1984, this Glen Ellyn native released the bewildering spoken-word track â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Language of the Future.â&#x20AC;? Although Andersonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sound has expanded over the past three decades, her experimental live show remains as jarring as ever.

Here, she performs a new multimedia work named after that 1984 track. Details Old Town School of Folk Music. $58â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$60. oldtownschool.org

May 6â&#x20AC;&#x201C;June 18 THEATER

Black Pearl: A Tribute to Josephine Baker

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celebrates the groundbreaking icon in a world premiere bio-musical. Details Black Ensemble Theater. $45–$65. blackensembletheater.org

May 7 CLASSICAL

Avalon Quartet Loop Ending its poetry-tethered season, the Avalon Quartet plays Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 3, a work written under Soviet censorship, and welcomes a second viola and second cello to blanket the hall in Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, a pre-atonality masterpiece based on a poem about an anxious woodland walk. Details Fullerton Hall at Art Institute of Chicago. 2 p.m. Free with admission. avalonquartet.com

May 7 R&B

Kehlani Logan Square Last year yielded this R&B singer a Grammy nomination, which she promptly followed up with a critically acclaimed studio album, SweetSexySavage. Wielding intricate choreography and an army of backup dancers, the onetime America’s Got Talent star puts on a stunning live show. Details Concord Music Hall. 6 p.m. Sold out; see resellers.

May 9–14 THEATER

Rent Loop It’s hard to believe it’s been two decades since Angel, Mimi, Maureen, and the rest first sang the gospel of no-day-but-today. Twenty years and one film adaptation later, this touring production toasts Jonathan Larson’s lovable East Villagers in a by-the-book re-creation, right down to the flannel and fishnets. Details Oriental Theatre. $22–$82. broadwayinchicago.org

May 10 COMEDY

Neil Hamburger

Stuttering Didn’t Bench Him Stuttering never kept NFL star Darren Sproles out of the game.

STUTTERING FOUNDATION

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A Nonprofit Organization Since 1947—Helping Those Who Stutter

800-992-9392 StutteringHelp.org tartamudez.org Photo credit: Philadelphia Eagles

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May 10 ROCK

THE

Don’t let it sideline you either.

Lincoln Park Onstage, he is Neil Hamburger, a sweaty, awkward burnout riding an endless string of hard breaks. Offstage, he is Gregg Turkington, a musician and comedian who created the off-kilter standup persona back in the ’90s. He has earned a rabid cult following, performing alongside alternative acts like Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim, and Jack Black’s Tenacious D. The routine is heavy on self-deprecation (think Rodney Dangerfield turned up to 11) but should satisfy fans of discomforting comedy. Details Lincoln Hall. 8 p.m. $20–$22. lh-st.com

The Jesus and Mary Chain Uptown File this under must-see legacy gigs. After 19 years away from the studio, these Scottish postpunks released a new album, Damage and Joy, in March. They are as influential as they are enigmatic, and their stock blend of jagged guitar and dissonant melody is present as ever on the record. Catch them here before another two-decade break. Details Riviera Theatre. 8 p.m. $35. .# % .Ő3| )'

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Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Near North Side Nestled between Hubbard Streetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spring and summer series, Dance(e)volve is anchored by two world premieres. The all-female, all-Chicago program includes works by Robyn Mineko Williams, Penny Saunders, Alice Klock, and Lucky Plush Productionsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; founding artistic director, Julia Rhoads. Details Museum of Contemporary Ă&#x152;,. Ă&#x160;"# !)|Ă&#x2039;ÂĽwv|Ă&#x2039;hubbardstreetdance.com

May 11 ART

New Media Art from China Loop This screening of video pieces by young Chinese media artistsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;curated by Zhang Peili, who has his own retrospective in the Modern Wingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; shows how todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s artists use moving-image technology to develop their own points of view.

Details Art Institute of Chicago. 6 p.m. Free with admission. artic.edu

May 11â&#x20AC;&#x201C;13 CLASSICAL

Brahmsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4 Loop In the second of two CSO Brahms symphonic programs (see May 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;9 listing), Riccardo Muti turns his ear to the composerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s late works. The tidy No. 3 and brilliant No. 4 ďŹ nish the tetrad.

Details Symphony Center. $45â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$265. cso.org

May 11â&#x20AC;&#x201C;June 11 THEATER

Harvey

PHOTOGRAPH: COURTESY OF ATLANTIC RECORDS

Hyde Park It may seem odd that a play about an imaginary rabbit nabbed a Pulitzer, but Mary Chaseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quirky 1944 drama deďŹ ed the odds. For Court Theatreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

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production, Timothy Edward Kane plays Elwood P. Dowd, a man whose imaginary best pal has whiskers, fur, and ďŹ&#x201A;oppy ears. Details Court Theatre. $38â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$68. courttheatre.org

May 11â&#x20AC;&#x201C;June 18 THEATER

Relativity Skokie Nonagenarian Mike Nussbaum plays Albert Einstein in this drama about the fate of the geniusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s daughter, Lieserl, born in 1902 and never seen or heard from after 1904. In exploring the mystery, playwright Mark St. Germain reveals the little-known personal side of one of historyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brightest minds. Details Northlight Theatre. $15â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$81. northlight.org

May 11â&#x20AC;&#x201C;June 24 THEATER

The Night Season Rogers Park A seaside village in County Sligo, Ireland, is all agog when a movie crew upends the local routine.

Playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz evokes Chekhov in this play about three sisters dreaming of a land beyond Ireland. Shenanigans and sexual tension abound. Details Strawdog Theatre at Factory Theater. $15â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$30. strawdog.org

May 11â&#x20AC;&#x201C;July 2 THEATER

Great Expectations Loop By transplanting Charles Dickensâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rags-to-riches adventure from workhouse-era England to British Rajâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;era Calcutta, playwright Tanika Gupta shines a klieg light on imperialism. As in Dickensâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s original, an impoverished orphan struggles to stay true to his culture as a mysterious benefactor raises him out of poverty. Details Remy Bumppo and Silk Road Rising at Silk Road Rising. $13â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$35. greatexpectationsplay.org

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May 12 GOSPEL

Kirk Franklin Merrillville, IN For nearly three decades, this choir director has blended disparate black music genres into bouncy hip-hop gospelâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;most recently with the likes of Kanye West and Chance the Rapper. His live performances, bursting with energy and hope, are utter celebrations. Also playing this Motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Day show are Marvin Sapp and Shirley Caesar. Details Star Plaza Theatre. 8 p.m. $65â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$95. ticketmaster.com

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Manifest )/." ))*Ă&#x2039; Each year, Columbia College students hit the streets for the schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s urban arts festival, which features gallery exhibitions, pop-up music and dance performances, readings, fashion shows, and more. Details Various venues. 7 p.m.

Free. colum.edu/manifest

May 12â&#x20AC;&#x201C;18 FILM

Chicago Critics Film Festival Lake View Expect a stellar lineup at this ďŹ ve-year-old ďŹ lm fest. Last year, the Chicago Film Critics Association presented a bellwether selection of indie hits-to-be, among them Taika Waititiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hunt for the Wilderpeople, a New Zealand comedy that sneaked onto some high-proďŹ le year-end lists after receiving the festivalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Audience Award. Details Music Box Theatre. $10â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$15. "# !) ,#.# -Ĺ?&' -.#0 &| )'

May 13 CLASSICAL

Daniela Liebman Highland Park So young that she has braces in many of her promotional photos, the Mexican-born wunderkind makes it to the Ravinia stage before her 15th birthday. The pianist plays Mozart, de rigueur on prodigy programs, but also more heavyweight works, such as Alberto Ginasteraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Danzas Argentinas and Chopinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ballade No. 3.

Details Ravinia. 8:30 p.m. $10. , 0#(# |),!

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Paula Poundstone

SPECIAL OFFERS Discounts and deals from CHICAGO magazine partners Sign up at chicagomag.com/newsletters

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Pilsen A regular on NPRâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s news quiz show Wait Wait â&#x20AC;Ś Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Tell Me!, Poundstone has lost more games than any other contestantâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;usually in spectacular, hilarious fashion. Her standup is similarly screwball, with an improvised style that keeps audiences on their toes. Details Thalia Hall. 7 and 10 p.m. $40â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$60. thaliahallchicago.com

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Rennie Harris Puremovement Loop After wowing fans at last summerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Chicago Dancing Festival, Harris and his hip-hop crew return for RHAW (Rennie Harris Awe-Inspiring Works), a short-format matinee for the whole family. Details Harris Theater. 2 p.m. $10â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$15. harristheaterchicago.org

May 13 ROCK

Andy Shauf Lincoln Park Over the course of his 2016 breakout The Party, Shauf examines the same soiree through the perspectives of 10 different people, tracing and retracing the flirtations, fights, and awkward interactions of a fictional group of friends. If that sounds stuffy for a rock concert, don’t fret: Shauf’s literary lyrics are set to some of the catchiest melodies this side of the new millennium. Details Lincoln Hall. 8:30 p.m. $15. lh-st.com

May 13–21 THEATER

The Silver Whistle Evanston The student tumblers, aerialists, and trapeze artists of Evanston’s Actors Gymnasium flaunt their finest circus artistry in a show rich with witches, princes, and a magical whistle.

Ringling Brothers vet Sylvia HernandezDiStasi choreographs the stunts. Details Actors Gymnasium. $13–$15. actorsgymnasium.org

May 13–30 DESIGN

School of the Art Institute Design Show Loop See page 50 for more. Details Chicago Design Museum. Free. chidm.com

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May 14 ROCK

Ty Segall Pilsen With half a dozen musical projects to his name, Segall ranks as one of indie rock’s most prolific figures. His most recent solo effort (his ninth overall) is a self-titled, Steve Albini–produced jam.

Much of his studio work skews psychedelic, but don’t be surprised if Segall goes full-on punk in a live setting. Details Thalia Hall. 8:30 p.m. $24–$30. thaliahallchicago.com

May 14–15

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CLASSICAL

The Day of Judgment Skokie, Loop Georg Philipp Telemann holds a Guinness World Record for his vast musical output. So it’s no surprise that his oratorio The Day of Judgment, a four-contemplation encapsulation of the Apocalypse, isn’t heard much. Music of the Baroque’s thoughtful music director, Jane Glover, leads the orchestra, chorus, and soloists in a philosophical march through fiery devastation to paradise. Details May 14: North Shore Center for the Performing Arts; May 15: Harris Theater. 7:30 p.m. $27–$75. baroque.org

May 15 MUSEUMS

Elmhurst Museum Day Elmhurst If you don’t live or work in this western suburb, you wouldn’t know that it’s host to a variety of cultural institutions. Highlights include the surprisingly subversive Elmhurst Art Museum and the Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Arts, which displays cut and polished gemstones with

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May 15 FOLK

Father John Misty Loop On Pure Comedy, his third record since stepping down as drummer of Fleet Foxes, this California folksinger (real name Joshua Tillman) explores themes of technology, politics, and human nature. The April release ďŹ nds Tillman at his best: blending the line between pop rock and performance art, sincere and sarcastic. As always with the guy who performed on Letterman with a laugh track, expect some serious theatrics live. Details Chicago Theatre. 7:30 p.m. $30â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$50. ticketmaster.com

May 17â&#x20AC;&#x201C;June 25 THEATER

Little Thing, Big Thing Wicker Park Fresh from his turn as a demonic priest in Foxâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Exorcist, Brad Armacost stars in Donal Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Kellyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s buddy caper about a nun on the run, a thief intent on robbing her convent, and the unlikely bond they form against a nefarious oil company. Details Irish Theatre of Chicago at Den Theatre. $26â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$30. irishtheatreofchicago.org

May 18 GARDENS

Beer Under Glass ,Ĺ? & ,% This exclusive shindig is a favorite among Chicago hopheads, and it kicks off Chicago Craft Beer Week. Sample more than 100 brews as you mill about GarďŹ eld Parkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eight scenic greenhouses.

New this year: a cast of local food trucks to

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discourage drinking on an empty stomach.

Details ,Ĺ? & ,% Ă&#x160;)(- ,0 .),3| v~tq *|'| $60â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$80. chibeerweek.com

May 18 ELECTRONIC

Bonobo Logan Square One of the most popular producers in electronic music of late, this British DJ has moved from a down-tempo to a world-building sound. In January, Bonobo released the critically beloved Migration, a complicated, beautiful collection of tunes that span various world music genres and challenge the idea of traditional dance music.

That said, you can still expect to boogie at this live show. Details Concord Music Hall. 8 p.m. Sold out; see resellers.

May 18â&#x20AC;&#x201C;June 25 THEATER

T. North Center The world was shocked when someone injured ďŹ gure skating princess Nancy Kerrigan shortly before the 1994 Olympics. Eventually, Kerriganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s archrival, Tonya Harding, was implicated in the attack. Dan Aibelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world premiere drama plumbs the salacious story of the sportâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most scorching rivalry. Details American Theater Company. $15â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$38. atcweb.org

May 18â&#x20AC;&#x201C;July 2 THEATER

Three Days of Rain Rogers Park Playwright Richard Greenberg delves into the architecture of a family (and a family home) in a time-tripping drama about troubled siblings and the Long Island building they were raised in. A hidden journal sparks the action in the play, which follows a brother and sister coming to grips

PHOTOGRAPH: ARMANDO L. SANCHEZ/CHICAGO TRIBUNE

shocking detail. Entry to all museums is free to the public on Monday, May 15, with complimentary shuttle rides. Details Various locations. Free. elmhurst.org

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with their familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s past. Details Boho Theatre at Heartland Studio. $28. bohotheatre.com

May 19 CLASSICAL

Hopkinson Smith Evanston This renowned lutenist gives a solo recital of early music for instruments that once accompanied singers as inescapably as guitars do today. In the niche of a niche that constitutes lute, Smith is perhaps the number one name. Details Galvin Recital Hall at Northwestern University. 7:30 p.m. $10â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$30. music.northwestern.edu

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))*Ă&#x2039; Hailed as one of the most dramatic ballets of the 20th century, Red Giselle returns to Chicago for the ďŹ rst time in nearly two decades. Director Boris Eifman helms the true story of a Russian ballerina, Olga Spessivtseva, who defected to Europe in 1924. Details Auditorium Theatre at Roosevelt (#0 ,-#.3|Ă&#x2039;ÂĽttÂ&#x201C;ÂĽrrt| auditoriumtheatre.org

May 19â&#x20AC;&#x201C;21 FESTIVAL

Mayfest Lake View This raucous block party is the official kickoff of Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oft-sloppy street festival season.

But Mayfest is a reliably good time and the ďŹ rst opportunity to work on that upper-arm tan.

Details Ashland and Barry. $10. starevents.com

May 19â&#x20AC;&#x201C;June 18 THEATER

Pamplona Loop The last time actor Stacy Keach and director Robert Falls collaborated at the Goodman (2006â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s King Lear), the result was must-see theater. Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hoping similar lightning strikes as the two join forces again in Jim McGrathâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s drama about a despondent Ernest Hemingway struggling to recover his mojo after running with the bulls in Pamplona. Details Goodman Theatre at Den Theatre. $20â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$60. goodmantheatre.org

May 19â&#x20AC;&#x201C;June 24 ART

Ladies Night in Lascaux Noble Square It is often assumed that the Paleolithic cave artists of Lascaux were men. Up-and-coming Chicago artists Hope Esser and Liz McCarthy examine cultural constructions of gender through disruptive sculptural and performance-based actsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;for example, a body-part-shaped whistle that McCarthy playsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;in one of Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most vital DIY creative spaces. Details Roots & Culture. Free. rootsandculturecac.org

May 20â&#x20AC;&#x201C;21 FESTIVAL

Malott Japanese Garden Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Festival Glencoe Every May, Japan celebrates children and mothers with a weekend of carp kites and sweet rice cakes. Here, the Chicago Botanic

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Garden offers a morning of kid-focused Japanese cultural events. Make origami samurai helmets, hear masters play traditional instruments, and witness a tea ceremony in the Zen environs of the Malott Japanese Garden. Details Chicago Botanic Garden. Free. chicagobotanic.org

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Nomi Dance CompanyÂ

% # 1Ă&#x2039; Nomi caps its 10th season with Ten Yeared, a program including a new work by Giordano Dance Chicago veteran Joshua Blake Carter (see page 54). Also on the bill are two revivals, most notably director Laura Kariotisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lyrical Fyrtsa Decad. Details Athenaeum " ., |Ă&#x2039;yĂ&#x2039;*|'|Ă&#x2039;ÂĽrsÂ&#x201C;ÂĽtv. athenaeumtheatre.org

May 20 ARCHITECTURE

Wright Plus 150 House Walk Oak Park Wisconsin may be the birthplace of Frank Lloyd Wright, but the architect mastered his craft here. In honor of the 150th anniversary of Wrightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s birth, design buffs can tour four historic homes drafted by the man himself (plus half a dozen more by his contemporaries and protĂŠgĂŠs) on an easy-to-walk loop through Oak Park. Details Various locations. 9 a.m. ÂĽyqÂ&#x201C;ÂĽrqv| Ĺ?1,#!".|),!

May 22 CLASSICAL

Chicago Chamber Musicians

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Loop A survivor among Chicago chamber groups, CCM here revives two pieces with unusual instrumentation. Beethovenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sextet for Winds, op. 71, features two clarinets, two bassoons, and two horns, and DvoĹ&#x2122;ĂĄk adds a second viola to a string quartet for his â&#x20AC;&#x153;Americanâ&#x20AC;? String Quintet, op. 97. Details (4 && . ))- 0 &. (#0 ,-#.3| x~tq *|'| ÂĽuq| $ , '# " ' |1#2-#. | )'Â&#x2022; "# !) " ' ,'/-#

May 22 ELECTRONIC

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Loop Known for ambient electronic music and dynamite stage shows, this French composer is the gold standard in blending visual art and music. Artists like Daft Punk and Justice continue to take cues from his theatrical stage setups, and on the heels of his 2016 release, Oxygène 3, you can expect Jarre to up the ante for his Chicago fans. Details Auditorium Theatre . ))- 0 &. (#0 ,-#.3| x~tq *|'| ÂĽtyÂ&#x201C;ÂĽrvq| .# % .' -. ,| )'

May 24â&#x20AC;&#x201C;25

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COMEDY

Ricky Gervais Loop Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been seven years since Gervais regaled main-stage crowds with his trademark quips and gripes. Back on the horse for the mysteriously titled Humanity tour, Gervais promises fans his most personal, honest, and angry material yet. Details Ă&#x160;"# !) " ., | ÂĽvqÂ&#x201C;ÂĽyq| .# % .' -. ,| )'

Third Coast Percussion

May 24â&#x20AC;&#x201C;July 9

THEATER

Parade

Ragtime

Glencoe In 1913, Leo Frank was lynched after being falsely accused of raping and murdering a 13-year-old.

His story may not seem to be the stuff of musical theater, but composer Jason Robert Brown crafted a memorable score and story around the tragedy. Director Gary Griffin brings the rarely produced show to life. Details Writers Theatre. $35â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$80. writerstheatre.org

Near West Side The musical take on E.L. Doctorowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s novel captures early 20th-century America and the culture clash between monied WASPs, newly mobile African Americans, and off-the-boat Jewish immigrants. Composer Stephen Flahertyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s score is a brilliant combination of syncopation and soaring harmonies; Terrence McNallyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book spins the story of America at a crossroads.

Details ,# Ĺ?( " ., . ( " ., | ÂĽtqÂ&#x201C;ÂĽtz| !,# Ĺ?(." ., | )'

May 24â&#x20AC;&#x201C;July 16 THEATER

King Liz Albany Park The realm of top-tier sports is an aggressively male-dominated business, which makes the superagent in Fernanda Coppelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s barbed comedy all the more intriguing. Liz is king in a ďŹ eld where A-list athletes make million-dollar demands (and those who canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t meet them get promptly benched). Details Windy City Playhouse. $15â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$55. windycityplayhouse.com

May 25

May 28 RECREATION

Bike the Drive Lakefront Once a year, Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s signature thoroughfare becomes a pedalerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s paradise (at least for those willing to saddle up at the crack of dawn). Cyclists take the right of way for ďŹ ve hours of familyfriendly exercise. Details Lake Shore Drive. 5:30 a.m. $17â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$65. bikethedrive.org

May 28

ROCK

CLASSICAL

Perfume Genius

Maurizio Pollini

Lincoln Park In 2014, the Seattle singer Mike Hadreas tore onto the scene with his hit third record, Too Bright, a brave, beautiful release that opened the door for a new generation of LGBTQ artists.

Expect to hear material from Hadreasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stilluntitled follow-up, which he recently described as a â&#x20AC;&#x153;grown-up albumâ&#x20AC;? about life after trauma.

Details Lincoln Hall. 9 p.m. $21. lh-st.com

Loop Closing in on six decades as a professional pianist, this Milan native carries a leonine reputation that makes his Chopin the one to hear. Here, he performs a series of medium-length Chopin works alongside the complete Book 2 of Debussyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Preludes, a set that goes out with a bang called Feux dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ArtiďŹ ce (â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fireworksâ&#x20AC;?). Details Symphony Center. 3 p.m. $35â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$103. cso.org

May 26â&#x20AC;&#x201C;July 1

PHOTOGRAPH: SAVERIO TRUGLIA

May 27â&#x20AC;&#x201C;July 16

THEATER

May 28

THEATER

NEW MUSIC

Bright Half Life

Third Coast Percussion

Lake View More than 40 years pass in the lives of the lesbian couple at the heart of Tanya BarďŹ eldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s award-winning drama. But since the playâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s structure shuttles between past and present, the audienceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s view is colored by hindsight.

Keira Fromm helms an intricate story of two lives intertwined, from courtship to mortality.

Details About Face Theatre at Theater Wit. $10â&#x20AC;&#x201C;$40. aboutfacetheatre.com

North Center Having won a Grammy for last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Steve Reich album, this energetic quartet now hosts Eardrum, a percussion duo from Germany.

Eardrum plays works by Germans, Third Coast plays commissions from emerging composers, and all six musicians pool their mallets for â&#x20AC;&#x153;Peaux,â&#x20AC;? a skins-only movement from PlĂŠĂŻades, by the contemporary composer Iannis Xenakis. Details Constellation. 8:30 p.m. constellation-chicago.com O

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(continued from page 97) actively involved. She’ll temporarily relocate to L.A., but in an ideal world they’d shoot the show in Evanston and include a scene where Irby’s character eats peanut-sesame noodles at LuLu’s.

For Irby, the show is an opportunity to portray more people like her on TV: a woman of color with a chronic illness who’s just trying to get by on at least 18 prescription meds. “I really want to speak for a very specific type of black person, living a normal, childless life, listening to rock music, and not on crack. We need complex, messy people of color on TV.” And if the show doesn’t get picked up?

She’ll keep writing and settle into married life. She’ll help Jennings care for her two kids. Irby’s health is relatively good these days; she’s been going to the gym and has only had one significant Crohn’s flare-up since moving to Michigan. It’s a surprisingly domestic routine for someone who has nonchalantly compared lesbian sex to eating an open-faced roast beef sandwich and was once greeted by a man pooping in the alley behind her Rogers Park apartment. But she’s happy. “Kirsten embodies all of the things that I resent and will never be but I like to see her be them: excited and open and happy,” says Irby. Jennings is a social worker, and in her free time she tends to her garden while Irby sits inside watching recorded episodes of Real Housewives. “I’ve never had a safety net before, and for so long I did all this work to create my own.”

But when I ask her how she feels about her body now, in particular her weight (she’s struggled with it much of her life and writes about it often, half joking that she didn’t eat a fresh vegetable for the first time until she was a teenager), her immediate response is “terrible.” Her mortality remains front of mind, just as it always has. She put it this way in her 2015 blog post “Do Black Girls Even Get to Be Depressed?”: “i am just an old garbage bag full of blood patiently waiting for death to rescue me, but sometimes when i tell people that their immediate response is HOW CAN YOU BE SAD YOU’RE HILARIOUS!!!!! and then for five seconds i’m like ‘this asshole who has never met me before is correct i’m so funny i should stop thinking life is a trash can.’ until five seconds after that some human roadkill yells at the grocery store bagger or

pulls his scrotum out on the train and i get the insatiable urge to peel my skin off like the layers of an onion and jam my thumbs into my eye sockets while hoping that i’ll just disappear down the garbage disposal of human existence straight into hell.”

Marriage has not abated those feelings. “When I say it, I don’t even feel sad about it,” Irby says. “I want to be 55 years old and go to sleep and never wake up, except on the couch so no one has to maneuver me downstairs. And then Kirsten can have act 3 of her life. It’s kind of a beautiful story.”

A

few days after our interview, I’m still thinking about the conversation. How do I add to the literature on a woman who narrates her own life in grotesque, unsparing detail?

Anything I want to say, she’s already said herself, and better.

So I check Irby’s blog, and sure enough, she’s written a post about our encounter. She describes the interview as “dope, despite the fact that i described my personal style as ‘fat ninja’ and ordered 1/3 of the food i would actually eat in case it’s one of those interviews where the writer goes super in-depth into the mannerisms of the subject. … it’s just that i am an excruciatingly self-conscious person who will die upon reading ‘irby lumbered slowly into the restaurant, eyes darting nervously behind oversized black sunglasses as she surveyed the space for enemies, then squashed her bulk into a booth to order the first sixteen things on the appetizer menu.’ LOL FUCK THAT. i can promise you as long as i live that my secret fat shame will stay right where it belongs: hovered over the trash can searching for a food item thrown away in haste that i couldn’t stop thinking about for several hours.”

She then plunges deeper: “i hate talking to people in person. first of all: WHAT THE FUCK DO I KNOW. not much! i’m not actually 100% sure about anything!”

While she joked with me about keeping a finely honed list of enemies and pooping her pants, really she was anxious throughout the interview. She was answering my questions, but she was also working—processing every moment, filtering it through her inner monologue until it was blog-perfect. Personal pain as public art. That’s Irby’s shit. O

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Illinois

Ferne Clyffe, Shawnee National Forest

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t is the Land of Lincoln, after all. Springfield provides the ultimate Abraham Lincoln experience, with The Lincoln Home, The Lincoln Presidential Library, The Old State Capital, Lincoln’s Tomb, and more open to visitors. Step back in time on Galena’s historic Main Street, decked with restaurants, boutiques, and antique shops. Nearby, the newly opened Long Hollow Canopy Tour provides adventure-seekers with a two-and-a-half hour tour through the treetops. Digging the elevation? Stay at Timber Ridge Outpost & Cabins, a tree house and log cabin resort in the heart of the Ozarks.

Pop culture fanatics, take note: The Super Museum in Metropolis pays homage to Superman.

The in-progress Popeye Character Trail is located in the creator’s hometown of Chester; in Woodstock, where “Groundhog Day” was filmed, take a walking tour of the movie’s landmarks. Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois provides an ideal backdrop for ditching daily stress, with 280,000 acres of forest, canyons, rock formations, and waterways to explore.

On August 21, we will witness the first total solar eclipse since 1979; to celebrate, Southern Illinois will provide one of the longest viewing durations. Gather in Shawnee, or watch outside a local restaurant, and take in all two minutes and 44 seconds of the phenomenon.

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Michigan arbor Country, a stretch of eight cities along Lake Michigan, is a popular destination for Chicagoans, with white sand beaches, the shimmering blue lake, and charming small towns like New Buffalo and Union Pier. Hit the Maker’s Trail, a collection of breweries, distilleries and wineries — with many serving gourmet cuisine made from local ingredients. Visit individually or make a day of it and hire one of several trolley, bus, limo, or car services in the area to get around safely.

This year, the University of Michigan celebrates its bicentennial with events, exhibitions, and yearlong festivals celebrating the institution’s history. Speaking of history, Detroit is chock full of it. Take in the Motown Museum, chronicling the rise of the legendary label, the Detroit Institute of Art (home to original Van Gogh creations), and Diego Rivera murals. But, the city is also undergoing a resurgence with new innovative restaurants and bars alongside new features like West Riverfront Park and the riverfront DNR Outdoor Adventure Center, where kids (and adults!) can learn all about the great outdoors. Just west of Detroit, the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation houses important relics such as the Rosa Parks bus, Thomas Edison’s lab, tours through the historic Greenfield Village, and a Ford factory tour.

The New Buffalo Lighthouse

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Wisconsin

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isconsin Dells may be the Water Park Capital of the World, but new attractions, like an art-decked river walk and the expansion of nearby Baraboo Bluff Winery, make it even more appealing to mom and dad. The U.S. Open tournament tees off at Erin Hills in June, calling attention to more than 500 golf courses in the state, including the new Sand Valley course in Central Wisconsin. It has two world-class courses designed by Coore & Crenshaw and David Kidd that stretches over 1,700 acres of sand dunes, sweeping elevation changes, and stunning scenery.

Native son, Frank Lloyd Wright, turns 150 this year, and the Milwaukee Art Museum marks the occasion with the exhibition Frank Lloyd Wright: Buildings for the Prairie. There are plenty of Wright projects to tour across Wisconsin, including his former home Taliesin, the Seth Peterson Cottage overlooking Mirror Lake (available for overnight rental), and the Monona Terrace Convention Center in Madison. Additionally, if you are headed to the state capital, bring an appetite. Madison is a foodie’s delight, boasting the nation’s largest producer-only farmers market in the country, plus many award-winning restaurants, including several from James Beard award-winning chef, Tory Miller. Wisconsin is peppered with craft breweries and distilleries, too. Staples like New Glarus Brewing Company blend with classics like culinaryfocused Like Minds in Milwaukee, or The Brewing Project in Eau Claire. New distilleries include Madison’s State Line Distillery will open this summer.

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Missouri

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he ever-vibrant Branson just keeps growing. Adding to the extensive roster of entertainment and attractions is a new golf course from former pro Gary Player, conservationist Johnny Morris, and Bigfoot on the Strip with a 200-foot tower free fall. Last year’s “Raiding the Country Vault” returns with concerts from top country music talent.

The Route 66 car museum opened last year with a collection of 70 different privately owned cars, from vintage Jaguars to a rare 1936 Horch. Outdoor lovers: visit the Katy Trail, the country’s longest rails-to-trails path, which stretches 240 miles along part of the Missouri river.

There is also Don Robinson State Park, which opened early this year just outside St. Louis; it is the newest addition to more than 90 Missouri state parks and historic sites.

The 600,000-square-foot City Museum in St. Louis, housed in a former shoe factory, is a playgroundfunhouse-art project made almost entirely from found objects. The city is also a culinary hub, with five James Beard-nominated chefs, including Gerard Craft, who nabbed the Best Chef: Midwest award in 2015. Over in Kansas City, experience a lively night out in the Power + Light district; an eight-block area with more than 50 bars, restaurants, boutiques, and venues. You cannot leave without a dose of legendary Kansas City barbecue and restaurants like Arthur Bryant’s, The Local Pig, and Joe’s to complete the experience.

The Gateway Arch, St. Louis

North Dakota heodore Roosevelt once said North Dakota is where “the great romance of my life began.” With sweeping landscapes and sprawling skies, it is easy to see why. They are in full display at his namesake, The Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It is where Badlands and Great Plains meet, with over 70,000 acres filled with wildlife and changing topography.

Roosevelt fans will enjoy Dickinson State’s comprehensive archive of photos, letters, scrapbooks, film clips, and audio footage related to our 26th president; the Medora Musical pays a more lively homage with an outdoor western-themed musical featuring a Badlands backdrop. Hungry? The pre-show Pitchfork Fondue, situated atop a bluff, has steaks cooked via pitchfork over a fire while the musical’s performers provide a live soundtrack.

The Enchanted Highway in southwest Regent features the world’s largest scrap-metal sculptures placed along 32 miles of road. Across the state, the world’s largest cow, catfish, sand hill crane, and buffalo statues are quirky and Instagram-worthy attractions. When it comes to dining, Fargo’s food and drink scene is bustling with contemporary American restaurant, Mezzaluna, newcomer Flatland Brewery downtown, the more established Maple River Winery, and Distillery situated just outside the city. The Plains Art Museum, also in Fargo, houses a collection of contemporary and American modernism alongside traditional and contemporary Native art.

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Theodore Roosevelt National Park

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(continued from page 103) then the company has been growing fast and acquiring aggressively—and so has its competition. Several of the people who worked at American Backhaulers are now top execs at Robinson. And several of those who aren’t have spun off 3PLs of their own, bolstering Chicago’s role as an industry hot spot.

A FEW MILES FROM CHICAGO Central, in a converted paint factory in the meatpacking district of the West Loop, another division of Robinson works with more esoteric concepts, like predictive analytics and artificial intelligence. TMC (the initials stand for Transportation Management Center, but nobody calls it that anymore) is the brainchild of Jordan Kass, a member of the American Backhaulers diaspora.

When Robinson bought that company, Kass talked his new bosses into bankrolling an alternative to their 3PL model. In a way, TMC is Robinson’s hedge against the future.

If Chicago Central looks and feels like a trading room, TMC is a tech startup. The office is full of transportthemed art and reclaimed wood and has a rooftop deck that offers a spectacular view of the Loop. In one conference-size room, a lone engineer sits surrounded by four walls of pinned-up task lists, flow charts, and multicolored spreadsheets that visualize customer John Deere’s efforts to optimize its six-continent supply chain.

In another space, software engineers work quietly, writing algorithms that fit loads into trailers and sort through routes and rates and commodities and dates to choose the best carrier for any given shipment.

The idea at TMC is to put Robinson’s software platform, called Navisphere, directly into the hands of companies—usually “the biggest of the big,” says Kass—that want to use it for themselves. Instead of taking a commission on each transaction, as Kass’s colleagues at Chicago Central do, TMC offers tailored versions of the software on a subscription basis, giving clients the ability to book their own transportation for rates they can negotiate directly with carriers.

During my visit, Kass drew me a picture on a whiteboard to illustrate what TMC does, using one of his favorite customers, Microsoft, as an

example. On one side he drew a column of small boxes representing the various ways Microsoft receives its hardware orders—from its websites, its stores, big-box retailers, and online retailers.

Next to these he drew a large box representing Microsoft’s ERP—“enterprise resource planning”—system, the huge software package that keeps track of orders and inventory, among other things. Next to that, another large box represented TMC’s client-accessible version of Navisphere. On the far right, another column of small boxes indicated various carriers or 3PLs that Microsoft might use to deliver a shipment to its destination. Finally, Kass drew a bunch of arrows going back and forth between the two large boxes, and a couple more arrows pointing up (toward the cloud) and back. What they do at TMC is make the arrows.

Let’s say Best Buy asks for 10,000 Surface tablets; a kid in Portland buys an Xbox online; an OfficeMax in Skokie orders a dozen Bluetooth keyboards. All orders—up to 700,000 of them on a busy day—are funneled into Microsoft’s ERP system and from there into TMC’s software, which consolidates the orders, arranges them into shipments, and figures out the best way to complete each one, whether it’s five ocean containers going from Shanghai to Long Beach or a single package headed from a Microsoft distribution center in California to an apartment in Lake View. At any time, Microsoft’s execs in Redmond, Washington (or anywhere), can look on a computer screen and get a street-level snapshot of any shipment in the system, along with the local weather conditions. Come back in a couple of weeks, Kass says, and you’ll be able to see traffic jams as well.

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HERE ARE A FEW MORE THINGS I learned wandering around Chicago Central and TMC: 1. There are a lot of trucking companies. About 580,000, according to the American Trucking Associations. More than 97 percent of those companies operate 20 trucks or fewer. Why hasn’t this industry consolidated? One reason is that…

2. Supply chains are always changing.

Kass showed me a “network map” on an office wall: a graphic representation of a supply chain for one of his

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customers, Johnson Controls, a major diversified manufacturer. The pattern reminded me of a curving flare, or maybe Conan O’Brien’s hair. Three months from now, the shape would look completely different, Kass said. He explained: One of Johnson’s big lines is auto batteries; another is HVAC equipment. Let’s say the map was made in January, when a lot of car batteries die.

Consider what the distribution pattern would look like in July, when construction season up north in is full swing and demand for HVAC equipment is heavier. Or think about how the flow of vegetables out of Mexico changes from April to November.

Some of these factors are predictable—and logistics people predict them as best they can—but some are not: recession, forest fires, El Niño. All this flux militates against the consolidation of the trucking industry, Kass said, by providing plenty of niches where small, independent operators can compete by specializing in certain lanes, regions, or kinds of cargo. And 3PLs make it easier for shippers to deal with them.

3. Truckers follow the money.

Given that trucking companies are so scattered and independent, how does Robinson get the trucks to go where they’re needed? The answer is the great invisible hand of the market. Robinson has contracts with more than 68,000 carriers, but these contracts don’t obligate Robinson to offer loads or truckers to accept them. Supply and demand can change by the day or even by the hour; in effect, price is negotiable on virtually every shipment. A week before Mother’s Day, a driver will be willing to go to Miami—the country’s main entry point for imported flowers—for a very low rate, or maybe even go empty, because he knows he will get a big payday coming back.

This sort of foreseeable seasonal surge is built into the rates in Robinson’s computer system. But what happens when a hurricane hits New Jersey?

How do you persuade a driver to bring in building materials when he knows he won’t be able to get a load coming out?

The answer is simple: Pay more.

4. Driverless trucks are coming.

Kass thinks the driverless truck may eventually have the potential to turn the industry upside down. Humans, after all, are the weak link in the supply chain. They want to go where the jobs

are. When things get tough for independent operators, they go to work for a big trucking company. When things get better, they quit and go back to working for themselves. When housing booms, they park their trucks and work construction. And they get tired on the road and need breaks. Also, there arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t enough of themâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the American Trucking Associations recently estimated the shortage at close to 40,000 nationally. So, says Kass, when the trucks start driving themselves, that â&#x20AC;&#x153;could be the catalyst for the consolidation of the trucking industry.â&#x20AC;? How many mom-and-pop operations will have the capital or know-how to run a ďŹ&#x201A;eet of wheeled robots?

If big shippers like UPS and FedEx take over with the advent of driverless ďŹ&#x201A;eets, 3PLs will lose some of their market. With fewer carriers, it will become easier for small and medium-size companies to arrange their own shipping.

So if the autonomous truck eliminates drivers, as some fear it willâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;3.5 million of Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s last best blue-collar jobsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;it will likely eliminate a few logistics company sales reps, too.

FOR THE TIME BEING, THOUGH, shipping still needs improv artists like Jose Molina.

About 1 oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;clock on a Friday afternoon, Molina gets a call from a trucking company dispatcher whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s got a driver stuck in New York City traffic. This driver is supposed to be picking up a load of warehouse equipment in Kirkwood, New York, about 180 miles northwest of Manhattan, but isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t going to make it by the scheduled time. Molina zips off an instant message to the Robinson customer rep who ordered the pickup, citing the load number: â&#x20AC;&#x153;224086366 driver hit a snag and eta to shipper is 16:30-17:00 can we buy him time?â&#x20AC;? The rep has already informed Molina that this particular shipper is fussy about pickup times and likes to close its gates promptly at 4 p.m. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Eastern time, two hours from now. She writes back: â&#x20AC;&#x153;nope ainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t happening did u not see my emails i sent you? â&#x20AC;Ś have anyone closer?

I need it pickup.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Checking now,â&#x20AC;? Molina ďŹ res back.

He calls up the load on his screen and clicks a link called â&#x20AC;&#x153;Truck Find.â&#x20AC;? Out spills a long list of rigs sorted by their distance from the shipper. Molina ďŹ lters the results for a â&#x20AC;&#x153;dry van,â&#x20AC;? the

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enclosed trailer type that the order calls for, and for trucks that have reported their location within the last hour so that he can be reasonably sure they are roughly where the system says they are. He spies one that’s supposedly in Pittston, Pennsylvania, about 65 miles from Kirkwood. This truck is owned by a company he has never dealt with. So while he works the mouse with his right hand, he punches a phone number with his left. He reaches a dispatcher and asks about the truck. Has it moved? “Let me check,” the dispatcher says. Molina puts her on hold and picks up another call. He’s working several loads at once, clicking and zooming, scanning his screen, typing his notes.

After about a minute, he is back on the line with the dispatcher. “You do? Awesome! Is he empty? OK, I’ve got a great load here going to Texas.

The problem is that I gotta pick up in Kirkwood, New York. I think it’s like 60 miles from you. We’ve gotta get there before 4. You think your driver can do that? … OK, perfect. First stop is gonna be Little Rock, Arkansas, 8 a.m. on Monday. … No problem, take your time.”

He laughs. Whenever someone says “I need to check” or “Let me get a pencil,” Molina says, “Take your time.” But he doesn’t mean it.

Another line rings. “PleaseholdIllberightwithyou.” Back to the dispatcher. “Yep, and then the second drop is gonna be Longview, Texas— Longview, one word—at 1:30 p.m. the same day, on Monday. It’s gonna be 35,000 pounds and it’s 1,578 on the loaded miles.”

The dispatcher asks Molina how much he’s paying. Molina checks the load screen to see what Robinson has quoted the customer and how much he is authorized to spend. This is no time to maximize the spread. He throws out a number, lowballing a little because the carriers always ask for more. The carrier asks for more. “Uh, let’s bring it down—I mean, can you meet me?” asks Molina. He suggests another number.

“OK, perfect, sounds great. Let me just send you this rate confirmation, and you’re rockin’ and rollin’ here.”

He bangs out an instant message to his colleague across the room: “got a truck. rolling now. eta 15:45.” As he types it, he punches a button on one of his phones. “ThankyouforholdinghowcanIhelpyou?” O

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BACK ROOM by Bill Zehme E Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had over 17,500 Jesse White Tumblers. And at last count, only 120 have gotten themselves in trouble with the law.

Most of these kids come from a motherless or fatherless home. I serve as a safety net.

E If they tumble and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re African American, they came through me. We have some kids with blond hair and blue eyes, too. Â&#x2039;' ( +/ &Â&#x2019;)**),./(#.3 !)) #(Ĺ?/ ( | E Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a disciplinarian. And Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve always been disciplined. I like to be on time. If I have a job to do, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going to see it from its beginning to its conclusion. No excuses, no alibis. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how I run my life. .Â&#x2039;- && - & Â&#x201C;.)/!" &)0 | E -* % 0 ,3 +/# %&3} 0 ( ), ( & . */ &# - ,0 (.| So if I fast-talk you, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not trying to mislead you.

E ,/( ." & ,! -. - , . ,3 ) -. . Â&#x2039;- ) Ĺ? #( ." ( .#)(, with a staff of nearly 4,000 in 138 DMV facilities across the state.

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been to them all. I do it every year to make sure our services are rendered in a timely manner. When renewing your license, you no longer need to bring your duffel bag and lunch pail.

E I get kidded because each DMV has numerous pictures of me on display. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve changed a lot over my years in office.

I went from having hair to only having hair at the sides. Then they used to color it a little bit. So I ďŹ nally said the heck with it, and Â&#x2039;0 ( -" 0#(! '3 " 0 , -#( .

E President Lincolnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s image is now bigger than ever on our state license plates. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re talking about my savior here, what with freeing the slaves.

JESSE WHITE The secretary of state and tumbler king on fast talking and fast driving E I never traced my roots, man. I only know that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a brother with a big heartâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and that somebody brought my roots over here by way of boat.

E When I was 7, we moved 300 miles from Alton, Illinois, to the Near North Side, near Larrabee and Division. That was Little Italy back then, before it moved west to Taylor Street.

You had to capisce Italiano. Later on it became Cabrini-Green.

E /- .) $/'* )/. ) #,*& ( -| I was a member of the 101st Airborne Division. When parachuting, you never look down at the ground. You feel for it with your legs. Your knees are your shock absorbersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;you cannot tighten them. Same as skiing.

E )/ ( 0 , 1 (. .) &))% )1( #( &# } #." ,| I tell the kids, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The only time you look down is when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re tying your shoes.â&#x20AC;?

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E I need some sensitivity training, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t I? E Sometimes I send drivers little notes if I happen to see them make an infraction. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll write down their license plate number, then ďŹ nd out who they are. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll write, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was driving along the Eisenhower Expressway and noticed that you were not driving in a responsible manner. I just hope you will seriously consider obeying the rules of the road in the future.â&#x20AC;? Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m guessing it gets their interest.

E 3 2Â&#x2019;1# &#0 - #( ." - ' * ,.' (. /#& #(!| Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m on the seventh ďŹ&#x201A;oor, sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on the eighth. I see her every three weeks or so in the hallway or the elevator. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re family, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re good.

E I have two grown daughters from a previous situation. The key to raising daughters? Let me ďŹ rst make the sign of the cross here. Prayer helps as well as anything.

E Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve held elected office for 40 years: Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been a state lawmaker for 16, the Cook County recorder of deeds for six, and 18 in this office. I spent 10 years in the military, eight playing baseball in the Cubs farm leagues, 33 teaching school, and 58 overseeing tumbler teams. Yet Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not 150. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a youthful 82.

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