SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY FEBRUARY 19, 2014 ¬ STUDENT LED, NEIGHBORHOOD READ ¬ SINCE 2003 ¬ SOUTHSIDEWEEKLY.COM ¬ FREE
m u b l A e h t , s t s i t r A e h t , s m p roots lu
The A
k hip-ho r a P e d y H ir e th r o eon Viltz hon im S d n a t io tr a P o Mulatt
FOLK WORKSHOPS, SLOW GALLERY, EDDO STERN, PERRO, SOUTH SIDE STORIES, BRONZEVILLE MURALS
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MORE INSIDE
2 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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IN CHICAGO
SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is a newsprint magazine based out of the University of Chicago, for and about the South Side. The Weekly is distributed across the South Side each Wednesday of the academic year. In fall 2013, the Weekly reformed itself as an independent, student-directed organization. Previously, the paper was known as the Chicago Weekly. Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor
Harrison Smith Bea Malsky
Senior Editors John Gamino, Spencer Mcavoy Politics Editors Josh Kovensky, Osita Nwanevu Stage & Screen Hannah Nyhart Editor Music Editor Zach Goldhammer Visual Arts Editor Katryce Lassle Education Editor Bess Cohen Online Editor Sharon Lurye Contributing Editors Jake Bittle, Meaghan Murphy Photo Editor Camden Bauchner Layout Editor Olivia Dorow Hovland Assistant Layout Editor Zelda Mayer Copyeditor Emma Collins Senior Writers Ari Feldman, Emily Holland, Patrick Leow, Stephen Urchick Staff Writers Dove Barbanel, Christian Belanger, Jon Brozdowski, Emma Collins, Isabel Ochoa Gold, Lauren Gurley, Jack Nuelle, Paige Pendarvis, Rob Snyder Senior Photographer Luke White Staff Photographers Juliet Eldred, Stephanie Koch, Siddhesh Mukerji Staff Illustrators Isabel Ochoa Gold, Hanna Petroski, Maggie Sivit Editorial Intern
Zavier Celimene
Business Manager
Harry Backlund
5706 S. University Ave. Reynolds Club 018 Chicago, IL 60637 SouthSideWeekly.com Send tips, comments, or questions to: editor@southsideweekly.com
Cover photo by Camden Bauchner. Corrections: Last week’s cover story on the development of the Rosenwald, in Bronzeville, was unclear about Alderman Pat Dowell’s involvement in the story. She was not notified of claims that she told residents that the Rosenwald project was “moving forward, despite...concerns.” She denies those claims.’ The photo accompanying the story on “Deacon’s Choice” incorrectly identified the actors in the image. Director Mark Harris is not associated with the film.
A week’s worth of developing stories, odd events, and signs of the times, culled from the desks, inboxes, and wandering eyes of the editors
Martysaurus Rex
In what is possibly the most entertaining athlete-to-rap venture since Kobe Bryant’s “Thug Poet,” Chicago Bears tight end Martellus Bennett has released a hip-hop mixtape under the moniker Martysaurus Rex. It’s called “Year of the Orange Dinosaur,” and by all indications it’s actually not terrible. The cover features an astronaut riding on the back of an orange T-Rex, so there’s that to go on, at least. Here’s hoping Martellus’s skin is thick enough to put up with the several thousand “this mixtape is tight” jokes that are going to get tossed his way.
Jesus Carp
When God set plagues upon Egypt, He chose not to use fish. Judging from the recent infestations of Asian carp around Chicago, though, He probably should have considered it. The ichthyic offender destroys local ecosystems and can survive hours outside of water, making it difficult to kill and contain. According to a report by the BBC, the city is considering blockading the Chicago canal to prevent the cursed carp from entering Lake Michigan, at a potential cost of $18 billion. The carp, which were first brought to the South in order to eat away at algae, have multiplied across the country with speed more miraculous than Jesus on Adderall. What a load of carp.
Scalia v. Chicago
At an event in Chicago celebrating George Washington’s birthday last week, Supreme Court Justice Antonin “Toni” Scalia critiqued a number of powerful American institutions. American schools aren’t doing enough to teach students about the foundations of our country. The Supreme Court has misinterpreted the Constitution’s
stance on religion. Chicago deep-dish “shouldn’t be called pizza.” Cheese was flung, Rahm swore, and Chicago threatened secession. He later clarified. “It’s very tasty, but it’s not pizza.” Lou Malnati and Giordano are in the process of filing a joint appeal.
Strike and Deliver
Members of the UIC faculty union are set to deliver on some promises. The University of Illinois at Chicago United Faculty has announced a two-day walk out for February 18 and 19, following a flurry of organizing activity in December. Tenured professors and non-tenure-track faculty alike are striking for higher wages and more power in the university’s administrative apparatus. Having been in contract negotiations for a year and a half, the union hopes this strike will show the university that they’re serious about receiving fair pay from a university that’s been turning a profit for the last four years. Though these workers are more likely to flip pages than burgers, they are tired of having their hands soiled by the grease of injustice.
Tapping Dat
The long arm of the NSA has made its way to Chicago, according to documents released by that mousy, libertarian heartthrob Edward Snowden. Mayer Brown, a downtown law firm, was apparently the subject of spooks while advising the Indonesian government during trade talks. In a transequatorial double whammy, both the NSA and their equivalent down under—the Australian Signals Directorate—appear to have snooped on Mayer Brown or, as our esteemed, all-knowing monitors in Washington would phrase it, the innocent activities of private Americans were “incidentally collected.” ¬
IN THIS ISSUE public art in bronzeville
“Right now we’re just focused on the question of how do we brand the community as a historic destination.”
harrison smith...........4
paul’s not gay
“We’re at a point in time when queerness and other sexualities really complicate what gay means.”
hannah nyhart.....6
south side stories
“This boy, he’s so much a part of where he’s from. The way she describes him it’s like he is the block.”
cindy dapogny............11
ray elementary
folk workshops
“Sonically, Chicago is rooted in steppers’ sets and parties at skating rinks and barbeques.”
zach goldhammer.....10
kari wei.....................7
eddo stern
“I’ve always been enamored by this punk-meets-geek kind of place.”
stephen urchick........12
“If you can breathe, you can play harmonica.”
perro
“These students were gearing up for battle.”
olivia dorow hovland......................14
Brand Building A planner and activist envision historic photomurals for Bronzeville BY HARRISON SMITH
C
hris Devins wants to make Bronzeville a museum without walls. Mostly, he is interested in its gift shop. “When you go through a museum, you’re encouraged to exit through the gift shop and spend a little money.” So in Bronzeville, he says, “we’re going to create an outdoor museum along commercial corridors, where people might drive or ride their bikes and look at murals, check them out, see a little history—and then make the commercial corridors the gift shop.” Devins is a researcher at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, but on the side he works as an urban planner and consultant, crafting creative placemaking projects that aim to foster community development. Together with the Bronzeville Alliance, a neighborhood development coalition, he is spearheading an initiative to place large-scale photomurals around Bronzeville. Branded as the Bronzeville Legends “Represent” Identity Initiative, the project aims to promote tourism and redevelopment in the neighborhood. “It always comes down to identity,” says Devins. “To revive any commercial corridor you need a historical ambience, some kind of identity with which to place the retail.” To create that ambience, the Initiative wants to install five large photomurals alongside vacant lots. Each will depict a historic Bronzeville resident. “One thing that Bronzeville has is a unique historical identity. Jack Johnson lived here; Lorraine Hansberry based ‘Raisin in the Sun’ here; Richard Wright wrote his first book here; Louis Armstrong played at clubs here; Muddy Waters lived here; Mahalia Jackson is from here. So the object is to put up these large-scale photomurals as a branding initiative, and to use the same visual vocabulary that a McDonald’s or a Gap would use when they put up giant billboards. Only instead of advertising for somebody that’s going to take money out of the community, we hope that the murals will activate the empty lots between them. It’s a way to turn lemons into lemonade.” 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
Devins first started thinking about “identity”—“the first pillar of community development,” he says—when he was working as a field manager for “Residents at Risk,” a 2003 oral history and census of the last remaining residents of the Ida B. Wells and Madden Park Homes, on 39th Street in Bronzeville. Devins grew up in the neighborhood, attending Holy Angels Catholic School, two blocks south of the Wells Homes. He now lives in Hyde Park. In 2011, he earned a master’s in urban planning and public policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. His thesis proposed a community-driven redevelopment for 39th Street. “The corridor,” he wrote at the time, “lacks an identity. There is a sense that in a rush to tear down the Ida B. Wells / Madden Park complex and relocate its residents [in 2004], part of the corridor’s history, and therefore its identity, was erased…The future of East 39th Street involves a reversal of this loss of identity and a reconnection with the street’s identity.” Devins proposed a small mural series to anchor his 39th Street thesis project. Then last February, Devins approached Dr. Sokoni Karanja with an expanded version of the mural series, for all of Bronzeville. Karanja is the founder and president of Centers for New Horizons, a social service agency in Bronzeville, and was one of the founding members of the Bronzeville Alliance, which formed in 2008. The two met when Devins was studying finance as an undergraduate at Roosevelt University and doing research at the Lugenia Burns Hope Center, a Bronzeville leadership institute that Karanja co-founded with Barack Obama in 1994. Karanja arranged for Devins to meet with John Owens, director of community building for Centers, and since then Devins and Owens have worked to gain community support and financial backing for the project. In August, the Alliance kicked off a Kickstarter campaign that aimed to raise $6,500 in initial funding for the project. By the time the campaign expired, two
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months later, only $766 had been pledged. The initiative is hoping to raise a total of $90,000, but so far, it has only received a $5,000 grant from the Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC), a Chicago organization that promotes locally-driven neighborhood development. The funding is enough to install a small, nine-by-seventeen-foot mural of Ida B. Wells at the Centers for New Horizons’ Lawless Building, on 43rd and King. Devins says the mural can be applied as soon as the weather gets above forty-five degrees. If it receives full funding, the Initiative will be able to place murals at five strategic locations in the neighborhood, alongside commercial corridors and busy intersections. The murals will be applied as concrete graphics, a type of decal that allows photographic images to be molded directly onto walls. “You can see the bricks through it, and it looks like it’s been painted on, only it’s actually a photo,” says Devins, who has previously worked with the technique on projects in Arizona. Funding would also pay for solar-powered floodlights to illuminate the murals at night. The lighting, Devins hopes, will give people a greater sense of safety and promote “an increase in nighttime activity” along Bronzeville’s retail corridors. “I don’t think there’s going to be a problem getting the rest of the funding,” he says, “especially once we get the first ones up.” The Initiative has applied for a $93,000 grant from ArtPlace America, a national organization that funds “creative placemaking” projects, and is planning to apply for funding through the Chicago Community Trust, a neighborhood development organization similar to LISC. In late January, the Initiative launched a petition on Civic ArtWorks, a Chicago website that works to match political support to ideas for neighborhood planning and development. Devins hopes the site will encourage additional funding in the coming weeks. Through John Owens, the Initiative has also met with 3rd Ward Alderman Pat
Dowell, who used to work with Owens in the city’s planning office. Dowell is working with the city’s budget and law offices to determine whether tax increment financing or aldermanic menu money—discretionary funding that aldermen can use for infrastructure improvements—can be used for the project. “I believe this community branding project is good for Bronzeville,” said Alderman Dowell in an email, “and I am working to find a source of funding to assist them in getting this initiative off the ground.” The idea of strengthening a neighborhood through historical branding not a new one, and Bronzeville has long been committed to recognizing its past. In 1967, the “Wall of Respect,” a collaborative mural project at 43rd and Langley, was dedicated with the inscription, “This Wall was created to Honor our Black Heroes, and to Beautify our Community.” Torn down in 1971, the wall included the portraits of more than fifty African-American leaders. In 2012, a Negro League baseball mural was painted under the 35th Street Metra overpass to commemorate historic ballplayers. Devins says Chicago’s 1999 “Cows on Parade” exhibition, which placed decorated life-size cow statues across the city, was an economic model for the project. “Cows” brought an additional $200 million in tourist revenue over the course of its run. That sort of impact, Owens says, is just what Bronzeville is looking for, albeit on a smaller scale. Tourism “brings more visitors and brings more dollars. The question is, how do we take advantage of the assets that are already here? And the Identity Initiative is a perfect way to do it. It’s nothing we have to ‘create’—we just have to find a way to present [our history] to the public and raise awareness in a tasteful and artistic manner.” “Right now,” he says, “we’re just focused on the question of how do we brand the community as a historic destination, and how do we use that to generate political awareness and education, to use that
DEVELOPMENT
siddhesh mukerji
Chris Devins, standing at 552 East 51st Street, is raising money to place murals of historic Bronzeville residents alongside abandoned lots in the neighborhood. as leverage to get people to think of an even broader vision, to get people to say, ‘Oh, if we can brand the community then maybe we need to protect the community from people who might want to come in and exploit it. We better see about making sure there are no other Walmarts that are brought in to the area. And how do we create a zoning ordinance that’s going to promote small shops?’ ”
Owens hopes that sort of community-wide discussion about zoning and development is still to come. For now, though, he believes that the Identity Initiative will “serve some educational needs for our young people…create more pride in the community, and more of a willingness to take care of it—to own it, so to speak.” The Initiative is planning to hold historical tours, led by local historian Lorenzo
Young, between the murals. And in April, when Devins expects one or two murals to be in place, the Initiative plans to hold a historical bike tour with Go Bronzeville, a collaborative program between the city and the Active Transportation Alliance that is aiming to promote alternative transit options in the neighborhood. Harold Lucas, the executive director of the Bronzeville Visitors Information
Center, which provided Devins access to archival materials that helped launch the project, agrees that the project can create a brand for the neighborhood and increase awareness of local history. “We are the most important African-American community in the country,” says Lucas. “I think [these murals] will help brand Bronzeville as an international tourist destination—I have no doubt about that.” Still, he is skeptical that the murals will have a large impact on the lives of residents. “Good they’re doing it, but how does it create jobs, how does it build a commonwealth, how does it help to break the cycle of poverty?” Devins refers to “the three pillars of community development: identity, sustainability, and mobility.” Strengthening the first is, he believes, going to have a real impact on the others. By reaffirming Bronzeville’s historical legacy, the Identity Initiative is hoping to start a conversation regarding new zoning ordinances, a “style book” that codifies the design principles of businesses that move into the neighborhood, restrictions on the number of national businesses located on a single block, and property tax freezes that maintain economic diversity. It’s all talk, as Lucas points out, but “right now,” says Devins, “we have to get the low-hanging fruit. We have to be able to affect what we’re able to affect, and one thing we can affect is the aesthetics and culture of our neighborhood, and leverage that.” “It’s like when you discover who your parents were,” he continues, “and your grandfather. Once you know who you are then you can know where you’re going. But if you don’t know who you are—it’s hard to get where you’re going.” ¬
FEBRUARY 19, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5
VISUAL ARTS
Five Years Out Slow questions Paul’s sexuality BY HANNAH NYHART
“P
aul’s NOT Gay”—Slow Gallery’s latest show—was loosely conceived from a phone conversation between gallery proprietor Paul Hopkin and his father. Paul told his dad that he wasn’t seeing anyone, to which the older Hopkin replied, “Why do you bother telling everyone you’re gay if you aren’t having sex with men?” Curator Larry Lee references that story as a spark for the show celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Pilsen arts venue, that shares a floor with Paul Hopkin’s home. “The fact that his father wanted to semantically let him off the hook, because he wasn’t dating anyone, he wasn’t sexually involved with anyone—being ‘not gay’ was this wonderful conundrum that allowed us this opportunity to play with words, to be political, and to play off that, to question positioning,” he said. “The artists are interpreting that larger question or statement.” The artistic reactions—some clearer than others—to the statement “Paul’s NOT Gay” range from a flamboyant broom (a bundle of peacock feathers propped in the corner, fused with hot pink paint) to a shipping pallet piled neatly with cinderblocks. The label notes that there are others available to take home. In one corner, a screen loops a video in which friends and artists Oli Rodriguez and Barbara DeGenevieve sit in yellow and blue plastic chairs and take turns slapping each other’s faces. It’s hard to stop watching. The video is from 2007, when Rodriguez was DeGenevieve’s teaching assistant at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the pair wanted a piece that would shake up their power dynamic. But looking at it today, Rodriguez thinks the ambiguity of their relationship—mother and child? S&M? A couple?—lets the piece engage with “Paul’s NOT Gay.” “We’re at a point in time when queerness and other sexualities really complicate what gay means,” he said. Not that that hasn’t always been complicated. On a pedestal a few feet away, “Paul Lynde to Block” is a slowly spinning 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
cube of photos featuring mid-twentieth century actor Paul Lynde, a frequent center square guest on “Hollywood Squares” and “the gayest man on the face of the earth,” as Hopkin puts it. “In a time when it was very difficult to be gay,” a friend adds. John Henley has a series of drawings of Ditto jeans on the right-hand wall, a nod to an early moment of sexual awakening for Paul, detailed by Henley and his friend Andrew Holmquist in a tiny pamphlet book. Lee says the jeans “recall the seventies porno scene.” Most are depicted without people in them, but they’re weirdly shapely, definitely filled out. There are butts in those jeans. “Of course!” says Lee. “But that’s what I love about them, that was the era.” Pencil scrawls on the walls of the gallery denote each work. Some of those pencilings are a work themselves, such as “He’s Not, as dictated, but not necessarily pertaining to, Paul M. Hopkin,” by Judith Brotman. Lee explains, “She’s asked Paul to do a Bart Simpson, if you will, to write on the blackboard.” The wall is a cloud of He’s Not’s, imagined by Brotman and inscribed by Paul. He’s not languid, he’s not dead, he’s not phantasmagoric. “It’s kind of a weird self portrait,” says Lee, “because you’re not sure of how objective or subjective it is, because of the way that she dictated to him.” Lee could himself give a pretty good portrait of Paul. They’ve been friends for two decades; in the nineties they attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago together. “He was in ceramics, I was in sculpture. He was the technician, I was the weird conceptualist who didn’t do a lot of work, and we’ve—” Lynde’s sculpture falls over before he can finish the thought, and Lee dives to reset it. I ask Lee if his decades of knowing Paul prove any of the phrases on the wall untrue. “No,” he says, but after pausing to read, he takes his “no” back on some accounts. “Well, he’s definitely not dead,”
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courtesy of paul hopkin
Lee says. “He’s not giddy? No, he is. He’s not obvious? He can be. He’s not me—well that’s a fact. He’s not cranky? It depends on when.” Among the more obviously true is “He’s not alone.” Slow Gallery opens directly into Hopkin’s apartment, and on opening night the back room is full of friends talking and toasting with gin and homemade tonic. Early on, Lee jokes that the show is a weak excuse to celebrate Slow’s five years, though the technical anniversary is a few months off. “This is a love-fest for Paul, it’s an homage, it’s a tribute,” says Lee. And it is clear that we are among friends. Many guests took part in the gallery’s inaugural roundup, five years ago. Both Paul and Lee are frequently interrupted by friends coming or going, and there’s a lot of clapping and laughter. But both curator and subject are thoughtful about the other questions the show poses: questions about art, and curation, and the ways in which perceptions of sexual identity have shifted, or not. As the show’s tongue in cheek subject, Paul’s sexuality comes up as he talks about the art, and he moves fluidly between the two. “I’m not a vulnerable gay,” he says, in the midst of an analysis of a favorite piece. “It’s easy for me to be gay. I’m white. I went to a good graduate school. I’m in the art
world.” But he’s concerned that the images associated with being gay haven’t changed. The piece we’re looking at, “Rebis Rebus,” is a sort of charcoal pencil drawing by Ryan Michael Pfeiffer and Rebecca Walz. It’s a melee of images, various scribbled sex acts mingled with faces that look like they’ve been peeled off a Mesopotamian vase. “While I’m interested about how much an identity changes when we don’t acknowledge that it changes, she’s referring to things that are thousands of years old, but still from a fresh perspective,” continues Paul. But he also likes it because it’s direct, sexy, and beautiful. “I can just look at it, and respond to it. I don’t have to think about it. It does things without me feeling this impulse to explain.” The art of “Paul’s NOT Gay” is the kind of work that can be laughed with, not at. The kind that can be read, examined, watched on repeat, participated in. “I’m an intellectual in a lot of ways, but I’m an artist because that experience outweighs the intellectual aspect,” says Paul. “No matter how intellectual I am, I want the art to win.” ¬ Slow Gallery, 2153 W. 21st St. Through March 14. Saturdays, noon-5pm. (773)645-8803. paul-is-slow.info
MUSIC
camden bauchner
Ray Elementary Mulatto Patriot and Simeon Viltz honor their Hyde Park roots BY KARI WEI
S
imeon Viltz and Mulatto Patriot are alumni of Ray Elementary. Together, they’re also hip-hop duo Ray Elementary. The pair just released its eponymous debut, a thirteen-track album dedicated to the Hyde Park elementary school. Viltz has been in the hip-hop game for a long time—a rapper, producer, and instrumentalist, he is half of respected Chicago duo The Primeridian, and has collaborated with L.A. collective The Pharcyde and East Coast production-king Pete Rock. Producer Mulatto Patriot, who graduated ten
years after Viltz, has worked with the likes of Del the Funky Homosapien and Oakland’s Hieroglyphics crew. Featuring fellow Ray alum Psalm One, Englewood’s Pugz Atoms and Imani from The Pharcyde, Ray Elementary marries old-school samples with live instrumentation. This weekend, we sat down with Viltz and Patriot at Medici to discuss the inspiration for the album, mentoring Chitown talents like Vic Mensa and Chance the Rapper, and the golden years of Hyde Park hip-hop.
How did the Ray Elementary project get started?
needed a wonderful soul MC with positive messages to get on it.
Mulatto Patriot: I was just chilling with my cousin H-Bom, [Horace Hall, a former DJ teaches education policy at DePaul] in Horace’s basement, with, you know, a nice little whisky, and he passed me this Blackbyrds record. He’s like, “Yo, I think it’d be really cool if you make some beats out of it.” So I’m getting all these Blackbyrds samples and chopping them up and I just
Simeon Viltz: I started coming through MP’s house—his lab, I should say—and it was one of those things where I realized he was official. He wasn’t just a beat maker; he wasn’t just an engineer. He was a producer. I remember vividly the day he played the beat from “Mysterious Vibes.” I used to love that sample. I remember Curious George rocked it. I remember the rap-
FEBRUARY 19, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7
camden bauchner
per Paris rocked it. So when he played it, it just brought back all this nostalgia and I looked at him and I was like, “Are you kidding me? You want me to get on this? Of course I will!” I think I probably started doing a dance—I probably started steppin’ or something like that, I was just that excited. That mode, that time period, that was when guys were rapping. They weren’t hiding behind the music, you know. I started envisioning the record even before I was writing it. We just started piecing it out one by one and the momentum built from there, and then the instrumentation was added after the majority of the album was recorded lyrically, which was cool because the musicians would hear how I was rapping on it and would kind of match the pocket. Why did you name yourselves Ray Elementary? How did the culture of the 8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
“He said: ‘You don’t know about Rakim?!’ And then he played it and I just lost it. I was like, ‘I have to rap now!’ That was it.” school and the neighborhood influence the album? SV: I always tease MP because I’m the elder—I went there ten years before MP did. It’s not often that I run into people in the music world that went to the same elementary school I went to. Especially Ray, because Ray’s kind of different. It’s very diverse. It has a history of being a high-achieving school, but it’s also a public
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school. So I know that MP and I already had a lot in common from that alone. And so I was like, “Why not? Let’s just go with it, let’s name it Ray Elementary.” There are a few direct references in the album that speak on Hyde Park, but it was more of just the vibe. Sonically, Chicago is rooted in steppers’ sets and parties at skating rinks and barbeques. Musically, the “Ray Elementary” album fits in with those environments. The soundscape was also very
nostalgic—a lot of samples that had been done before. What was it like growing up in Hyde Park during the time you were at Ray Elementary? SV: Growing up in Hyde Park was very unique, very interesting. My favorite time period was in ‘88 or ‘89. It was just so cool to me, because people would be on 53rd Street like it was Times Square. It was <i>cool</i>. If you were young you would walk on 53rd and that was the social spot. It wasn’t all crazy with the police like it is now. It was a lot more peaceful. They used to have these things called YVI games at Kenwood, for Youth Vision Integrity. Think of any movie where they get a bunch of people for a basketball game and everybody’s rockin’ it with their hip-hop out. It was so cool because house music was still
the thing in Chicago but it was cutting edge, it was just new and fresh. MP: I’m mixed myself. My dad’s Jewish, mom’s black. And growing up in Hyde Park was very cool because it <i>is</i> very multicultural. For lack of a better term, it’s not as segregated here. I always felt that I could walk down the street and just say, “What’s up?” and there’s no, like, ulterior motives behind saying hello. It’s not like that every place in the city. I think Hyde Park is special for that, and I think a lot of it has to do with bonding on art and culture. There is something about the people here that is just very worldly, more so than in a lot of places. This was a very diverse neighborhood and I was very thankful for growing up in it. Especially after I moved to the suburbs with my family—that was a big culture shock. SV: At Ray, I remember in seventh or eighth grade being at a buddy of mine’s, Jeff Hammock, whose house was literally a few blocks from where we are now. It was a huge house, and his parents were totally cool when we had everybody over. We had people who were well to do, coming from a lot of money, and people who were living over by Maryland and Drexel, which within the Hyde Park subculture was kind of the low end. I can’t imagine parents just allowing that to happen in most parts of the city. Even when I lived in the city, I felt tension just from walking down the street in some areas because of the stigmas and the stereotypes. That was all just thrown out of the window around here. What was the hip-hop scene in Hyde Park like at that time? Was Stony Island out there yet? SV: I’m so happy you mentioned that. Rest in peace, Attica. He was a friend of mine who passed away way too young. He was one of the members of Stony Island, a legendary graffiti writer, and just a hiphop head. He said: “You don’t know about Rakim?!” And then he played it and I just lost it. I was like, “I have to rap now!” That was it. It was him and another friend of mine that put me up on De La Soul, even, and encouraged me to tune into WHPK more. I think what was instrumental to me getting more into hip-hop—beyond just Run DMC, the Beastie Boys, and LL Cool J— was WHPK. You had people like JP Chill, Chilly Q , and Ice Box. They were the pioneers of that station. They played hip-hop
I’d never even heard before. Early on, I was able to get stuff that people anywhere else were never able to. Just being on the South Side, you know, their transmission was widespread. You could get signal. Even in the hundreds, you could get WHPK. What was your background in music before you guys started producing hip-hop? MP: I guess my first love is jazz. Growing up, jazz is what we listened to; that’s really what got me into hip-hop. The first CD that I really got into was Stan Getz and the Oscar Peterson Trio. My dad is a professional pianist, but he does more weddings and Bat Mitzvahs. He would always be playing jazz, though, would always be
Talking Heads, a lot of retro eighties and late-seventies stuff, Frank Zappa. I always try to do things that no one else has really done before. So much so that I actually worked in a music library when I was down in Champaign at U of I, because I wanted to have access to stuff that I never heard. I just became obsessed with it. I’m an avid record collector now, just trying to find stuff that’s never been used. You’re both incredibly active outside the hip-hop scene as well; can you tell us about the mentoring programs that you’ve participated in and how you got involved in them? SV: It was serendipity, that’s the best word
“Know your history, and know that Kool G Rap was one of the best rappers out there at one point.”
playing the piano. So when I would hear Miles Davis being chopped up, when I would hear these certain sounds like on Guru’s “Jazzmatazz” albums, there was just a direct connection. SV: My dad used to play the trumpet—he’s from New Orleans—and when he came to Chicago he was in this group called Black Lightning. They were on MCA Records for a second with some guys from the Chi-Lites and Earth, Wind & Fire. When he was finally out of the music game he became Mr. IBM and left me with his horn. My mom was always playing records super loud: Al Green, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder. I started to emulate those guys and their performance. Mom was also a classically trained pianist, so she was playing in church, and growing up I’d hear her practicing. When I first really got into hip-hop, it was coming out of the “we’re going to sample everything James Brown” phase. And so that was really exciting. So I got really into jazz and funk, of course, but also groups like Steely Dan which I probably wouldn’t know much about if it weren’t for hip-hop. Now I’m into taking it further:
I can use, because when I finished grad school I was working for the Chicago Public School | University of Chicago Internet Project. That was when they were installing programs and computers for teachers to use in their classrooms. There was a kid who was in the seventh grade, as a part of a computer club, and he was class clown but a bright kid. It wasn’t Ray, and I’m not going to put the school on blast, but when he transitioned to eighth grade I noticed a change in his behavior. He started using crack cocaine and selling crack cocaine. He had this obsession with the Clipse, and I asked him what was it about them. That was when they had their song “Grindin’,” and that was really out and poppin’, and it was before the onslaught of 50 Cent and everybody else that came right after. And he was like, “It’s the beats, Mr. Simeon, them beats, you know!” I knew it was the Neptunes, and I know Pharrell’s killin’ the music game right now still. But I realized how music had an impact on kids more than anything I’d ever seen before. At the time I was at a crossroads because my group—the Primeridian—had deals on the table for two
songs. One was called “Mandingo” and one was called “One Night Stand,” and these songs were adult themed. I realized that if we rode out with the momentum of those songs, then that’d be on the radio and it wasn’t going to be adults hearing it, it’d be kids. It wouldn’t be cool. I didn’t want that on my soul. That’s why I just kind of did a life change and a metamorphosis and realized I wanted to do music production workshops. I took a pay cut. It was a life change. It was needed—if I don’t do it, who else is doing it? MP: Again, for me it was my cousin Horace Hall—the person who showed me all the records for this album. He started a program called the R.E.A.L. Youth Program. R.E.A.L. is an acronym for Respect, Excellence, Attitude, Leadership. The kids actually came up with it themselves. We instill values through catharsis, letting them do the art that they want to do and using that to implement good values. One day, I’m down at engineering school getting my degree and all that good stuff, and I come back in town and call Horace. He’s like, “Yo, I’m over with these kids. If you wanna come hang, you can come hang.” Those kids attended prospective charter schools at the time. We’ve put out three CDs with the kids and just… for me the profit’s in the heart. We’ve been doing it since 2001. I was always raised under “get yours and give back.” So that’s my little piece of giving back. If you could share some advice with young, up-and-coming Chicago rappers and musicians hoping to make a difference through their art, what would you tell them? SV: Really, really go hard at it. Not just writing every day and rapping every day, but also maybe freestyling so that your flow is impeccable and solid. Know your history, and know that Kool G Rap was one of the best rappers out there at one point because he set these patterns that people are still trying to decode and figure out now. Just have that overall appreciation for it so that you can keep pushing it forward and innovating. MP: Figure out why you’re doin’ it. Why you love it. And note that nobody’s going to take you seriously unless you take yourself seriously first. If you’re fifty-fifty or if it’s just cool: don’t. It’s not worth the money. It’s really not. One in a billion get enough money to be up there and rich like that. ¬
FEBRUARY 19, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9
MUSIC
A Weekend of Folk Workshops at the fifty-fourth annual University of Chicago Folk Festival
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his past weekend, the University of Chicago held its fifty-fourth annual Folk Festival. The organizers gathered an eclectic collection of roots music performers, including the “Queen of Cajun music”, Sheryl Comier, and her family band, South Side Gospel superstar Calvin Bridges, and ten-time Grammy award-winning bluegress violinist, Bobby Hicks, among others. Over the course of the weekend, the roots musician performed three three-hour sets for the assembled Mandel Hall audience, many of whom sashayed their way onto the the stage. The Mandel Hall shows weren’t the only highlight of the festival. The musicians also held intimate gatherings throughout the weekend to teach and pass on a variety of folk songs, dance, crafts, and styles. We chose to profile four of our favorite workshops.
Guitar styles of Blind Blake with Ari Eisinger
As a guitar teacher, Ari Eisinger is an exacting professional. The fingerpicking, six-string technician is deeply dedicated to blues artists from the 1920s and 30s including Blind Blake, the enigmatic blues virtuoso who briefly took up residence on the South Side of Chicago. Eisinger studied these guitar styles under Dave Van Ronk a model for the titular character of the Coen Brothers’ “Inside Llewyn Davis.” The man who appeared at the workshop presented himself as a sobered-up, button-down version of his teacher, a musician famously described by music critic Robert Shelton as the embodiment of an “unmade bed strewn with books, record jackets, pipes and empty whiskey bottles.” Eisinger, diminutive and soft spoken, was very precise in his execution of the complex fingerpicking style, delivering note-for-note recreations of Blind
Blake’s repertoire while fielding a range of technical questions about tone control, sustain, and resonance. He also pointedly explained his preferences for certain styles within the blues tradition. “When you listen to Muddy Waters you already know what all the chords will be” Eisinger said, comparing the intricate Piedmont style to the Chicago blues’ commitment to basic 12-bar blues forms. “Sorry,” he added quietly while fine-tuning his strings. “My prejudice, my opinions are coming out.” (Zach Goldhammer)
Irish Social Dance
You didn’t need to know the difference between a reel, a jig, and a hornpipe to dance all of them at the Irish Social Dance workshop. Instructor Ed Heffernan, a middle-aged, jolly-looking man in a kilt, promised the crowd that there would be no fancy footwork involved—“This isn’t Irish
step dancing!”—but that didn’t mean that the dances were simple. Every participant found themselves a partner, and then that couple joined three other couples to form a square. The dance happened in a blur, as each pair swung past each other in an interlocking series of moves. Stumble over a turn-around or grab the wrong partner, and the whole chain could quickly fall apart—which it frequently did. “You were supposed to go left!” Heffernan shouted, and the rollicking music began again. The band was the Murphy Roche Irish Music Club, made up of three adults and several teen and preteen students. The crowd was similarly intergenerational—toddlers rode on the toes of their mothers toes and older couples swung each other around like they were young again. When we got to the hornpipe, we literally bounced—my partner lifted me up in air as we hopped like frogs to the sound of the banjo, fiddle, and accordion. No wonder the instructor called it “Irish Aerobics.” (Sharon Lurye)
Crankie Making
I didn’t know what to expect when I walked into a workshop that promised to teach me how to make my own crankie, a form of moving-picture folk art often accompanied by song or narration. In their workshop, Elizabeth LaPrelle and Anna Roberts-Gevalt showed us two homemade crankie scrolls. Each had a frame that houses two rotating rods connected by a long scroll, which can be made of any material that allows it to be wound around the rods. The first was quilted and embroidered and told the story of a lord and the longlost love that came to find him. The second was made from translucent paper and used shadow puppets to supplement the motion of the crankie and tell the story of a Virginian poet in the 1930s. The toddlers and other young kids in attendance especially enjoyed the presence of shadow puppet trains. The workshop concluded with attendants building their own crankies out of cardboard, packing tape, skewers, construction paper, and crayons. While mine was not as regal or nicely put together as the juliet eldred
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All Data is Local
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Digital storytelling workshops at Ci3 BY CINDY DAPOGNY
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juliet eldred
ones LaPrelle and Roberts-Gevalt demonstrated—or even the ones made by the parents of the children in attendance—I gave it my best try and came out of the workshop with a crankie telling the epic tale of a crayon-drawn dog and his friends. (Emily Lipstein)
Beginner’s Harmonica
“If you can breathe, you can play harmonica.” It was this sentence that assured me my five-dollar investment in a harmonica at the Beginner’s Harmonica Workshop was going to pay for itself. In just an hour, we learned the basics of playing the harmonica, starting with the right grip and working our way up to blues structure. Instructor Joe Filisko informed us that precision could
pretty much be thrown out the window, as long as we were in the general vicinity of where our mouth needed to be. There were two key lessons on blues playing: when in doubt, inhale, and keep everything on the lower five notes of the harmonica. Here we found the kind of low, rattling loneliness of a train whistle we were trying to emulate. The harmonica isn’t a loud instrument, so it doesn’t take too much effort to breathe in and out. Add a little bit of rhythm, and you’re playing already. Later, Filisko led the group in a simple Cajun song—pointing backwards to have us inhale and forwards to exhale—with one side of the room playing a low rhythm and the other providing melody. Five dollars well spent. (Mark Hassenfratz) ¬
ll right. Now you guys tell me what you saw.” Seed Lynn, leader of Digital Storytelling Workshops for South Side Stories, waits patiently for the audience. He’s just shown “Four Corners,” a video by South Side teen Ajua (only first names are shown), which chronicles the tale of Ajua’s first kiss with her crush and his subsequent rejection. It seems a familiar story, but Lynn wants to dig deeper. After a pause, he asks: “What did this experience mean?” South Side Stories—a program of the University of Chicago’s Center for Interdisciplinary Inquiry and Innovation in Sexual and Reproductive Health, or Ci3—offers digital storytelling workshops, led by Lynn, that provide South Side youth (ages thirteen to twenty-four) with the guidance and tools to create short videos conveying a personal story. The workshops each span one weekend, from Friday evening to Sunday. Afterwards the South Side Stories post-production team polishes the footage into edited form. But the workshops aren’t just about equipping teens with more ways to tell their stories: for Ci3, they’re also research. Principal Investigators Melissa Gilliam and Alida Bouris lead the program. Gilliam is the Director of Ci3 and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, Bouris an assistant professor in the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration. They want to explore how stories from teens can expand the scope of social science research, “to bring the people we study into the process,” Gilliam says. Ci3’s larger premise is that to treat endemic sexual health issues, especially among teens, researchers have to understand demographics as more than just potential patients. This is one of their efforts to deepen that understanding, by listening
to the ways teenagers talk about the issues they face, be it heartbreak or a violent block. South Side Stories’ first screening, held last Thursday in the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry’s Lab space, showcased five completed stories, averaging around two minutes each and focusing on relationships (the next day being Valentine’s Day). After “Four Corners” was “Closer” by Tia, addressing a boy she had dated before moving to a safer neighborhood. “I saw you on 102nd and State,” her voiceover begins, the intersection’s street sign on the screen. “We’re in Chicago, on the South Side, where every block is hot and no one is safe.” As “Closer” ended, Lynn shook his head: “This boy, he’s so much a part of where he’s from. The way she describes him…it’s like he is the block.” “Place is a portal,” Lynn continued, “All stories start in a place.” He critiqued the idea of the South Side as “one big community.” He continued, “Nothing could be further from the truth…It’s a very Chicago thing. People move in very rigid ways. There are these dotted lines you can’t cross.” Stories can help community members and researchers to understand these boundaries, as well as reorient the larger discussion around the South Side. As Lynn puts it, “They have a life beyond what the author intended.” Gilliam ended the screening by posing a series of questions. “Can we start to think about research differently?” she asked. “Can we begin to use story to change policy?” Statistics have their place, but stories—qualitative, personal, subjective, sometimes irrational—have a special power all their own, one that South Side Stories plans to harness. Sharing these stories with the community is an essential component of the program. After all, all changes, like all stories, start in a place. ¬
FEBRUARY 19, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11
Son of a Golden Age An interview with artist and game designer Eddo Stern BY STEPHEN URCHICK
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hether he’s owning a crowd of wet, drunken rockers or depriving his players of sight, sound, and touch, game designer Eddo Stern brings games into untrodden settings, onto unfrequented media. An artist, developer, and professor at UCLA’s Design/Media Arts program, Stern has destroyed the distinctions between computer simulations, tabletop shenanigans, and physical existence. His “Wizard Takes All” is part theater, part concert, and part fantasy role-playing game. His “Money Making Workshop” channels Monopoly into a hyper-competitive struggle staged on a vertical, sculptural board, ringed by the glitter of destroyed pieces and placeholders. In order to play his “Darkgame,” gamers have to don a spider-like helmet. Inspired by the nightmarish thought of being hurried through a desert blindfolded, “Darkgame” leashes resource-gathering mechanics to sensory perception in a surreal scramble. His works have made it to E3 and IndieCade, but also to the Tate museum and Sundance. Visiting Chicago, Stern stopped by the Logan Center for the Arts on Valentine’s Day to share these and other projects with a crowd of local designers and enthusiasts. Afterwards, the Weekly was able to talk to Stern about gaming past, projects present, and the industry’s future. Your games and other projects mix up the boundaries between play, narrative, and performance. But I wanted to learn how you yourself got mixed up in games and game design. I was a child of the eighties. It’s called the Golden Age of gaming. The Apple II was very significant in my upbringing. I had a lot of games that I got copied on floppy-disks without any manuals, without any game art—without any context—so the entry point for me was always very, very difficult and mysterious. You’d sort of boot it up and you knew often that there’s some kind of booklet that came with the game. But I didn’t have it. So games, I think, were
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very opaque initially but were also very mysterious in that sense. I really did not play games from age fifteen until I was in my mid-twenties. Then, in the mid-late nineties—as the Internet came on—multiplayer games over the network were happening in computer labs where I was studying and working. They reentered my life. I think for me the iconic game experience in my life was—as an adult, already—playing MMOs [massively multiplayer online games]. “Ultima Online,” first, and “EverQuest” and then a whole litany of MMOs between “EverQuest” and “World of Warcraft.” I think for me, MMO’s are a genre of games that have influenced me the most in their all-consuming powers. It really kind of blew me away. That all-consuming power came up in the discussion: Play being circumscribed in order to get something highly focused and very intense. Are you all about narrowing play to get the perfect experience, or do you think that there’s something more—a freedom to break the experience? I think a good analogy I can give is the difference between “Second Life” as an open-ended, freeform sandbox game and “World of Warcraft” as a highly constrained game experience. “World of Warcraft” also has opportunities to counter-play, or break the rules, but within a scripted space—an authoritarian environment. For me, the agency that’s allowed between the lines of constraint is much more compelling than the agency in a completely open world. It doesn’t matter what you do in “Second Life,” because everyone is doing something. Whereas if you do something unusual in “World of Warcraft,” there’s a will behind that action. An intent and perhaps a sense of resistance, but also a sense of play between the cracks, if that makes sense. In “Wizard Takes All” you use the tropes
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courtesy of eddo stern
of the fantasy RPG. You had the wizard-avatar, you had the mobs that were literally crowd-controlled, you had the quest-like idea of getting twenty items out of twenty. Why did you want to access these? I’m particularly interested in the construct of fantasy—swords-and-sorcery fantasy—as a kind of amalgam of icons and quasi-historical elements cobbled together
to create some cohesive whole, very much derivative of Tolkien and his aggregation of many different mythologies into his own world. He introduced wizards and dwarves and elves and swords—and magical swords—and invisibility potions and rings and treasures and dragons and princesses. That whole construct stands in for the word “fantasy” right now for a lot of people. There’s always been a research ques-
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is the counter-trend.
“For me, the use of fantasy— I suppose it’s been a muse of mine in some ways. I also find it very ridiculous.” tion—a sociological question of “Where does this come from?” and specifically the correlation between that particular world and computer technologies. Why has this become the iconic narrative skin around so many computer games? Magic as a metaphor for technology, that does not acknowledge technology. It allows for a sense of suspension of disbelief in a perfect way. For me, the use of fantasy—I suppose it’s been a muse of mine in some ways. I also find it very ridiculous. How it’s always the same. It’s such a cliché of gaming and of “gamers” that I deploy it semi-ironically. But at the same time, I also enjoy it. It’s comforting: the familiarity. Why transport that onto the stage at all, then? You’re taking a digital world and translating it into something performative. Why is performativity such an important mission? I think it has to do with the first mature work I made that was playable: a piece done in 2001 called “Tekken Torture Tournament,” which involves mapping real physical violence and fear onto a context of virtual violence. Community meant something to me, and “Tekken Torture Tournament” was done in an artist-run space that I started with a bunch of friends called C-Level. The idea of playing games with a group of people in public was very important to build our community. The idea of a shared experi-
ence in a certain space, at a certain time, that’s somehow entwined with everyday life. You’re sitting next to someone, you’re drinking with them, you’re looking them in the eye in a way that’s an alternative narrative to the isolated gamer playing online or playing alone.
You have a lot more game festivals. People are playing in public, on projections. You have physical peripherals back. We saw them in the eighties and then they disappeared and now they’re coming back. The Kinect and the Wii and all of this integrating more family members into a game. Cross-generational gaming as opposed to “the gamer,” the male teenager. It’s a very diverse and sophisticated field that you could carve up into many different types of players and types of play. You also have this generation of gamers that grew up with computer games entering their forties, having children, not wanting to give up on games, still wanting to play, and—in a way—not being satisfied with the same types of games. Wanting
games to start to address different genres, different issues. So you start to see that. I mean, I don’t think the examples have been exemplary. You start to see games like “Heavy Rain,” “L.A. Noire.” You know, what’s it going to mean for 60year olds who grew up on Atari who still want to game? What are they going to be playing? I find myself looking for new ideas, and in some ways the indie game community is providing some of that. If you look at games like “Kentucky Route Zero” and “CartLife”—they’re games with a much more considered, nuanced—dare I say—mature [laughs] look at the world. They’re really breaking away from genre. I think that evolution of the medium is an important one. ¬
But also, I think getting people together in a social space has been a vehicle for engaging different communities at the same time. And with “Wizard Takes All”—I wanted to do this game/rock show. With people who, in a way, could have stigmatized gaming. I’ve always been enamored [laughs] by these combinations: Led Zeppelin and their interest in both being this super-cool band, but also being into fantasy. And a whole bunch! Marillion and Jethro Tull. This whole connection of heavy metal and fantasy. This punk-meets-geek kind of place. This seems to be one of the challenges to games as an art form—the people who would take it out of that public sphere. Do you feel optimistic? What do you expect within the next five or ten years? I think there are many trends in gaming that are parallel and contradictory. On the one hand you have the proliferation of casual games, in a sense. A casual gaming on the iPhone. And on the other hand you have MMO’s which are in some ways the opposite of these games. Like the Icelandic space MMO, “EVE Online.” Which is one of the harshest games! And all these new trends of perma-death—survival games— FEBRUARY 19, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13
ENVIRONMENT
Green Training PERRO’s teens work for environmental justice in Pilsen BY OLIVIA DOROW HOVLAND
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he early hour on a Saturday morning did nothing to dampen the spirits of the fifteen high school students attending the Environmental Justice Training Program in Pilsen. As their weekly meeting wrapped up, the students passed around release forms for a future field trip, finished up snacks, and signed handwritten letters to politicians. But their amiability could not hide their passion. These students were gearing up for battle. It was February 8, and the students had gathered in a classroom at the Rudy Lozano Leadership Academy to talk about the environmental issues plaguing Pilsen. The program is run by PERRO, the Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization, and has been meeting on Saturdays at Lozano for four weeks. Jerry Mead-Lucero, a local organizer for PERRO and the training program’s leader, says these weekly meetings are “a place for us to connect more with younger people about environmental justice issues,” and “a chance to develop real relationships with the youth.” “They’re asking all kinds of really good questions and making all kinds of great connections. I’m really excited about this group,” said Mead-Lucero. PERRO is currently organizing against the opening of a metal recycling factory along Loomis Street, across the street from Benito Juarez Community Academy. Its six-month training program for students will teach them how to sample air, water, and soil for pollutants, and how to share those results with their neighbors and the government. PERRO hopes the students can help them build a stronger foundation for campaigns against environmental pollution in their neighborhood. “This neighborhood and Little Village, we’ve been really active around environmental issues. When we first started this work there was very little public consciousness in the neighborhood, and so a big part of our work over the years was actually getting people to recognize the environmental problems,” said Mead-Lucero. “We’re much better off now than when we 14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
VISUAL ARTS Visual Ends Ephemerality. Intangibility. The Human Condition. Countless artists throughout the course of history have attempted to transform these universal abstractions into something comprehensible through impressive words, grandiose imagery, bold colors, and experimental techniques. Yet one gallery in Chicago has undertaken the task of enabling both local and international artists to make physical these imperceptibles through simple installations of sound, light, and movement. Two single glowing light bulbs suspended in the air. Resonating vibrations in a room full of crystal glasses. “Performative” interactions with nude models. These are just a few of the past exhibitions displayed at the “Visual Ends: The Edge of Perception” exhibition at FLAT Chicago. FLAT, 2023 S. Ruble St. Private opening Friday, February 28, 7pm-10pm. Through March 30. Saturday-Sunday, 1pm4pm. Free. Viewing available by appointment. contactflatspacechicago@gmail.com (Maha Ahmed)
Library of Love
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started.” Environmental activism in Pilsen has become a burgeoning movement. The neighborhoods houses many old, polluting factories, including H. Kramer & Co.’s bronze and brass foundry and the former Loewenthal Metals site. PERRO’s own tests have found high amounts of lead in the soil of both sites, as well as on adjacent properties. One of PERRO’s principal campaigns was organizing for the closure of the Fisk Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant in the neighborhood. In service since 1903, the plant finally closed in August 2012, after years of campaigning led by PERRO, The Sierra Project and Greenpeace. Many neighborhood health issues had been attributed to pollution from the Fiske coal plant. In 2002 a Harvard School of Public Healthy study, which also looked at the now-closed Crawford coal plant in Little Village, linked Fisk and Crawford to 2,800 asthma attacks and forty premature deaths annually among neighborhood residents. “A lot of the people in the neighborhood came out with lung problems or with problems breathing. I realized that, ‘Oh my god, that happened to me.’ And I never knew why,” said Kristina Jensen, a student at the Lozano Academy, and a member of the training program. “It never really hit me until that first day I was here—this is important. I really want to do this.” ¬
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As the temperatures rise and the wind begins to subside, the memory of this hellish winter will begin to slowly melt away. It will become easier to feel fondness for our city again. With love on one’s mind after Valentine’s Day and the arrival of spring on the horizon, now is the perfect opportunity to take some time to think about love and Chicago in the same setting. “Library of Love” is an interactive exhibit—hosted by the Washington Park Arts Incubator and a slew of UofC partners—which serves as homage to both love and to Chicago. Members of the community are invited to take some quiet time to reflect on these subjects and materials will be available to those who would like to write their own love letters. Arts Incubator, 301 E. Garfield Blvd. Through March 31. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, noon-3pm. Free. arts.uchicago.edu (Lucia Ahrensdorf)
Performing Images From the late fourteenth to the early twentieth centuries, opera and theater were central to Chinese cultural life at the Imperial Court and in rural villages alike. This flowering of theater produced an inevitable ripple effect far beyond the stage. Operatic motifs are found on ceramics, scroll paintings, books, fans, and textiles. “Performing Images,” a new exhibit at the Smart Museum of Art, compiles a stunning array of such objects from the Ming and Qing dynasties. The show is being launched in concert with a five-month-long festival, “Envisioning China: A Festival of Arts and Culture,” that celebrates Chinese art, history, and culture with over forty events. “Performing Images” runs alongside another exhibit at the Smart, “Inspired by the Opera: Contemporary Chinese Photography and Video.” Together, these two collections form an unbroken narrative of an important field of Chinese visual art from its origins in medieval opera through its present incarnation. Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. Through June 15. Tuesday-Wednesday, 10am-5pm; Thursday, 10am-8pm; Friday-Sunday, 10am-5pm. (773)702-0200. smartmuseum.uchicago.edu (Lillian Selonick)
Paul’s NOT Gay In 2009, Slow Gallery opened in Pilsen and asked, “Paul WHO?” Now, the gallery will celebrate its fifth anniversary—traditionally observed with gifts of wood—with an exhibition grounded in the statement that “Paul’s NOT Gay.” On Valentine’s Day 2014, a handful of the artists who contributed work to the gallery’s first show will return to the space to defend (or refute) the claim. The exhibition is described as “tongue-in-cheek (or other body parts),” so it’s bound to get interesting. Bring a date or show up stag and spend your V-Day ruminating on the fact that “Paul’s NOT Gay.” See review, page six. Slow Gallery, 2153 W. 21st St. Through March 14. Saturdays, noon-5pm. (773)645-8803. paul-is-slow.info (Katryce Lassle)
Topographical Depictions of the Bronzeville Renaissance Multidisciplinary artist Samantha Hill makes history every day at the Hyde Park Art Center. More accurately, Hill is constantly reshaping history, experimenting with archival and narrative practices to tell the stories of Bronzeville’s storied past in the liveliest of ways. Her
first solo exhibition, “Topographical Depictions” is Hill’s attempt to construct a vibrant and ever-changing map of one South Side neighborhood’s history; the exhibition, which encourages audience participation, won’t look the same from one moment to the next. Part of the gallery is set up as an “office” in which Hill will work in real time every Saturday. She will also be creating tintype portraits of prominent Bronzeville community members, which will be displayed at Bronzeville’s Blanc Gallery starting February 28. Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. Through May 18. “Office hours” Saturdays 11am-3pm, starting February 15. Monday-Thursday, 9am8pm; Friday-Saturday, 9am-5pm; Sunday, noon-5pm. Free. (773)324-5520. hydeparkart.org (Katryce Lassle)
Photorealism in the Digital Age For New York-based artist Yigal Ozeri and other photorealistic painters, there is much to be gained by rendering a photograph with paint on canvas. The works they produce capture all of the detail and depth of a photograph, and simultaneously seem to project the image into an ethereal, dreamy world beyond our own. With the quality of digital photography constantly improving, photorealistic painters can capture and magnify intricate details more vividly (and realistically) than ever. Mana Contemporary Chicago explores some of Israeli-born Ozeri’s most recent work in their upcoming exhibition “Photorealism in the Digital Age,” shedding light on an ever-changing form of painting that has fascinated for decades. Mana Contemporary Chicago, 2233 S. Throop St. Through April 15. Call for gallery hours. Free. (312)8508301. manafinearts.com (Katryce Lassle)
Miami Dutch They preview us to curiosity with the strangeness of their release. I try to parse their gnomish subtext but lose myself as I take up this tongue-tripping, blurb-breaking, press-punching tone. “Miami Dutch,” a new exhibition going up at Queer Thoughts, insists on becoming the Last Time You Did Something for the First Time. Coupling an unhinged and gestural short story with an exuberantly bright and sharp-edged painting, they argue on their website that the intersection might just “break the adverbial body and her discreet geometries,” “the inaccessible plan of the surface.” The prose resists a simple gloss, the composition seemingly shivers itself into shapes, and you, gallery-goer, will remake reality. Can you feel it? Queer Thoughts Gallery, 1640 W. 18th St. #3. Through February 23. Hours by appointment. qtgallery. net (Stephen Urchick)
Hidden Gems Community-based art is no new phenomenon on the South Side. Before Theaster Gates, the likes of Charles White, Henry Avery, Archibald Motley, Jr., Marion Perkins, and other influential locals once called the South Side Community Arts Center their artistic home. Started by the Works Progress Administration, Bronzeville’s historic SSCAC has been accumulating an impressive collection of works by African-American artists since 1940. Though it was originally funded by federal programs, all funding was cut during World War II; community investment is what’s kept the center alive this long. With their new exhibition “Hidden Gems,” SSCAC celebrates Black History Month by sifting through the archives and displaying some rare old pieces from their permanent collection. South Side Community Art Center, 3831 S. Michigan Ave. Through March 1. Free. (777)373-1026. southsidecommunityartcenter.com (Grace Gleason)
Fragmentos It’s how most of us remember our childhoods: in fragments, abstract bits of memories that we are sometimes surprised we’ve kept with us. We all carry mental maps of our youth; Mexican-American artist Pilar Acevedo lays hers out in full color. She works through poetry, painting, sound, sculpture, and found materials to reimagine not only her childhood, but also the aspects of childhood that many women share. Surreal, uncanny, and even a bit frightening, “Fragmentos” places girlhood in a dream space that might turn into a nightmare at any moment. You survived childhood; “Fragmentos” is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on those years you thought you’d forgotten. National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St. Through July 13. Tuesday-Sunday, 10am-5pm. Free. (312)738-1503. nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org (Katryce Lassle)
ARTS CALENDAR
Silk Road and Indian Ocean Traders Did you know that archaeologists have found Chinese ceramics in excavations all over the Middle East? Findings like this reveal parts of the story of international trade in antiquity. They provide the basis for “Silk Road and Indian Ocean Traders: Connecting China and the Middle East,” a small exhibit open now at the Oriental Institute. The exhibit includes both Chinese and Middle Eastern artifacts, which, when viewed together, demonstrate the influence of Chinese inventions and innovations on Middle Eastern craft. Guest curator and research associate at the Institute, Tasha Vorderstrasse, will give a gallery talk on May 1 at 12:15pm. The Oriental Institute, 1155 E. 58th St. Through June 29. Tuesday-Sunday, 10am-6pm; Wednesday, 10am-8:30pm. Free, $10 suggested donation. (773)702-9514. oi.uchicago. edu (Rachel Schastok)
STAGE & SCREEN The Answer to the Riddle is Me Over ten years ago, David Stuart MacLean went to India to write a novel. After a total break from reality, he found himself with a memoir instead. The path from one to the other is surreal enough to sound like fiction: a reaction to anti-malarial drugs left MacLean on a train platform continents away from home, with no idea who he was. “The Answer to the Riddle is Me” traces the aftermath of that loss of self, first through the immediate turmoil of an Indian police station, but also back home in Ohio, through interactions with acquaintances and loved ones. It’s a narrative of the piecing together of a person—a narrative of what those pieces are. The award-winning writer will read at Midway House this Thursday, alongside UofC student and writer Da’Shawn Mosley. Midway Studios, 929 E. 60th St. Thursday, February 20, 6pm. Free. (773)834-8524. arts.uchicago.edu (Hannah Nyhart)
Law School Musical The University of Chicago Law School will be banging their gavels louder than usual this weekend. Law students, usually known for their abrasive manner and no holds bar-ed ambition, have adopted a lighter note and written a musical about—you guessed it—themselves. In the musical, UofC Law is faced with closure after the accreditor mandates that “happiness and satisfaction account for fifty percent of the accreditation decision.” To save the school, students and professors unite to litigate their way to good cheer. The plot might seem jurisprudentially jejune, but its approach towards happiness via the legal quibbles that make most miserable is a case of originality. Let UofC’s law students subpoena your feelings but, remember, it’s not pro bono. International House Assembly Hall, 1414 E. 59th St. Thursday, February 20, 8pm; Friday, February 21, 10pm. $10 in advance, $12 at the door. (773)753-2274. arts.uchicago.edu (Josh Kovensky)
Rio Playwright Jeremy Menekseoglu’s latest work takes his audience to a small town in Texas by the Rio Grande. The border village finds itself in the grip of a mysterious mass killer—disappeared bodies keep turning up dead and hacked to pieces downstream. Into the ghost-townto-be wanders Mary Graves, on the run from an abusive husband. Dream Theatre bills the show as “a furious story of love, hope, innocence, forgiveness, mass murder and... karaoke!” The company first performed the play fifteen years ago, but the Chicago cast and the intervening years promise a fresh show. And in the middle of an unceasing polar vortex, Texas, even one plagued by evil and karaoke, sounds pretty good. Dream Theatre Company, 556 W. 18th St. February 20-March 16, Thursday-Saturday, 8pm; Sunday, 7pm. $22. (773)552-8616. dreamtheatrecompany.com (Hannah Nyhart)
Bad Grammar Pro-out-loud-readers prepare to regale listeners once again at this month’s Bad Grammar Theater. The University Village Powell’s Bookstore is never at a loss for words, but this Friday will find some audio with the visuals, as authors read from work spanning sci-fi, fantasy, and pulp fiction. Besides Host Detzner, writers
vary month to month. Friday’s roster isn’t yet set, though Strunk and White are unlikely to make an appearance. What is promised is a blend of horror and magic, however ungrammatical. Listen closely and you might catch a comma splice. Powell’s Books, 1208 S. Halsted Ave. Friday, February 21, 6pm. Free. (312)243-9070 (Hannah Nyhart)
Anna, in the Darkness Those who like to leave the light on at night might want to avoid Dream Theatre Company’s newest horror. “Anna, in the Darkness” sheds only shards of light on its title character, a young special education teacher played by Megan Merrill. The one-woman show keeps tension piqued , casting the stage’s only face in the digital glow of a cell phone or the flicker of a candle. House playwright Jeremy Menekseoglu’s scare ran in 2012 and again last Fall, and now goes up Friday nights as an open run. Anna remains trapped in her house, hunted by a town outside, her guilt or innocence kept carefully ambiguous. The play’s a good bet for anyone who likes a little psycho with their thriller. This house is definitely haunted; the only question is by whom. Dream Theatre Company, 556 W. 18th St. Fridays: March 14, April 11, May 9. $17-20. (773)552-8616. dreamtheatrecompany.com (Hannah Nyhart)
Twin Peaks Cocktail Party It’s been twenty five years since the sheriff dragged Laura Palmer’s bloated, plastic-wrapped corpse to shore in a small town in the pacific northwest. Step back into David Lynch’s charmingly twisted world of Twin Peaks by dressing up as your favorite character for the 25th anniversary of Laura’s death. Join Maria’s for a damn fine cup of coffee, provided by Bridgeport Coffee, and eat some savory pies and donuts from Pleasant House and Enoch’s, respectively. Watch the pilot of the show that opened the possibility of capital-A Art television while the collection of ventriloquist dummies at Maria’s watches you. Bring your own log. Okay, Diane, I’ve got to go. Maria’s Packaged Goods & Community Bar. 960 W 31st St. Sunday, February 23, 6-9pm. Free. (773)8900588. community-bar.com (Kalil Smith-Nuevelle)
Taming of the Shrew The English literary tradition owes Shakespeare big time. Pretty much anyone who has ever scribbled in English post-Bard, from storied critic Harold Bloom to storied critic Kanye West, has, at some point, invoked the man’s authority. The Greeks have Plato, the Germans Goethe, and we have the Swan of Avon. For the longest time, I was under the impression that “The Taming of the Shrew” involved some combination of old English and anthropomorphism. As a firm believer in my pet turtle Julius’ right to conversation, I was disappointed to find my convictions only partially founded. Nonetheless, the Provision Theater’s offering of this classic-—a patchwork quilt of sexism, misogyny and societal discomfort-—is required viewing. Whether you’re looking to carry out a feminist takedown or you simply want to check out Heath Ledger’s source material, swing by, throwing-fruit in hand. Provision Theater, 1001 W. Roosevelt Rd. Through March 30. See website for showtimes and pricing. (312)455-0065. provisiontheater.org (Arman Sayani)
MUSIC Stan Getz Tribute Night Though perhaps not tall, tan, young or lovely, Stan Getz is considered one of the greatest tenor saxophone players in jazz history. Nicknamed “The Sound,” Getz is celebrated for his 1964 recording of “The Girl from Impanema” with Brazilian power couple Astrud and João Gilberto, which arguably popularized bossa nova with a single track. This week, Chicago-based saxophonist, Mark Colby, and WDCB radio station will play tribute to “The Sound” at the fabled Jazz Showcase, whose walls and history are filled with the work of Getz and his contemporaries. Getz once lauded Colby as a “master of the music he plays.” Jazz lovers should not miss this master sound off in honor of a legend, to listen, celebrate, and speak of Stan. Jazz Showcase, 806 S Plymouth Court. February,18. 8pm and 10pm. Free. jazzshowcase.com (Bess Cohen)
Bonnaroo Lineup Announcement
You won’t find yourself caked in dust and sweat, or watching live bands perform, but you can escape the snow and glimpse a little slice of Bonnaroo this Wednesday at Reggies in the South Loop. The Bonnaroo Lineup Announcement Megathon (BLAM!) is taking place in select venues across the country, and Reggies is your only chance to catch this “Bonnaroo-style barn party” in the Windy City. The evening promises appearances by The Flaming Lips and Ben Folds, as well as free tickets, free posters, and a chance to win free tickets to the big June hoedown itself. Not bad for a winter’s Wednesday night. Reggies, 2105 S. State Street. Wednesday, February 19. 8pm. Free. All ages. (312)949-0120. reggieslive.com (John Gamino)
J. Dilla Day Dillo Day ain’t got nothing on Dilla Day. In honor of the tremendously influential James Dewitt Yancey, aka hip-hop artist J Dilla, The Shrine is holding a night of celebration and seriously sick beats on the 20. Since his death on February 10, 2006—three days after the release of what’s considered his magnum opus, the instrumental hip-hop album “Donuts”—Detriot-born Dilla’s legacy has only grown (those “J Dilla Changed My Life” shirts are around for a reason). A few Chicago artists will be around to share in the festivities: Norm Rockwell and Sean Doe are DJing, and Encyclopedia Brown, along with The Ol Days, will be performing. Now’s the time to dust off that “Donuts” LP: the Day of the Dilla draws nigh. The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Thursday, February 20. Doors open at 10pm. 21+. Free before midnight; after midnight $20. (312)753-5700. theshrinechicago.com (Cindy Dapogny)
Marquis Hill Blacktet Trumpeter Marquis Hill is a rising star on the national jazz scene and is playing in venues across Chicago such as Andy’s and the Green Mill; but his roots are in Chatham, where he grew up and learned drums as well as trumpet. He recently released his third album in three years, “The Poet,” which he recorded with his Blacktet. Touring with this same ensemble, consisting of Justin Thomas on vibes, Irving Pierce on sax, Joshua Ramos on bass, Makaya McCraven on drums, and Juan Pastor on percussion, he returns to the South Side with sets at the WHPK Jazz series at UofC’s I-House and at House of Bing. International House, 1414 E 59th St. Saturday, February 22, 8pm. whpkjazz.org (Noah Kahrs)
DJ William Luck’s Burying Ground Gospel Showcase In 1919, Georgia-born Thomas Andrew Dorsey migrated to Chicago. Soon afterwards, he combined his knowledge of blues, jazz, and religious music into an innovative new genre that combined religious themes with new styles of music just beginning to emerge in
the South at the time—this was the birth of gospel. Immerse yourself in this piece of music history for five straight hours on February 26th, when gospel and soul record collector William Luck returns to Maria’s for the first of two encore DJ sets after a successful gospel showcase last month. Luck’s collection features some of the best-known artists, such as the Sensational Nightingales and the Staple Singers, as well as lesser-known independent groups. Like last time, Luck’s set promises to include tracks that span the development of gospel music from its earliest days as church choir music to its later borrowing from funk and R&B. “Respect Yourself ”— don’t miss it! Maria’s Packaged Goods & Community Bar, 960 W. 31st St. February 26, 9pm-2am. Free. Complimentary parking. (773)890-0588. community-bar.com (Rachel Schastok)
Reggies Presents Heavy Metal Legends: Metal Church, Screamking, Wrath and Iron Finger When West Coast thrash-rock pioneers Metal Church come to Reggies, their distortion-worshipping acolytes should be sure to follow. If you’re one of those unpious pilgrims, dedicated to the deities of speed and screech, you will find yourself in good company. The metal legends are coming to promote their latest album, “Generation Nothing.” Special guests Screamking will also be playing their own brand of melodic metal, along with fellow metal devotees, Wrath. DJ Tim Mix will also be there serving as the host of the event. This is the almighty, all-powerful word of Reggies, handed down from on high, the all-metal night is nigh. Reggies, 2109 S. State St. Wednesday, February 26, 7pm. $18. 17+. (Zach Goldhammer)
Weekly Jam Session with the Microcosmic Sound Orchestra “Music (vibration) has the power to transform matter” and “the goal of artistic expression should be to leave the listener in a higher state of being than prior to the experience.” Such are the beliefs of Sonic Healing Ministries, which has a weekly worship service in the form of a communal improv jam session at the Arts Incubator in Washington Park. Led by David Boykin, artist-in-residence at UofC’s Arts and Public Life initiative, the Microcosmic Sound Orchestra of Sonic Healing Ministries seeks to make music that impacts the well-being of audiences and performers alike, though there doesn’t have to be a distinction. Arts Incubator, 301 E Garfield Blvd. Sundays, 2pm-5pm. sonichealingministries.com (Noah Kahrs)
WHPK Rock Charts WHPK 88.5 FM is a nonprofit community radio station at the University of Chicago. Once a week the station’s music directors collect a book of playlist logs from their Rock-format DJs, tally up the plays of albums added within the last few months, and rank them according to popularity that week. Compiled by Rachel Schastok and Charlie Rock Artist / Album / Record Label 1. Cherry Glazerr / Haxel Princess / Burger 2. Habibi / Habibi / Burger 3. Angel Olsen / Burn Your Fire For No Witness / Jagjaguwar 4. Sun Kil Moon / Benji / Caldo Verde 5. George Brigman / Jungle Rot [reissue] / Obscure Oxide 6. The Fresh & Onlys / Soothsayer / Mexican Summer 7. Stephen Malkmus + Jicks / Wig Out At Jagbags / Matador 8. Oozing Wound / Retrash / Thrill Jockey 9. Oren Ambarchi / Amulet / Tapeworm 10. Natural Child / Surf N Turf / Suicide Squeeze 11. The Yolks / Two Dollars Out the Door / Randy 12. Holy Wave / Relax / Reverberation Appreciation Society 13. Ducktails / Wish Hotel / Domino 14. Tara Jane O’Neil / Where Shine New Lights / Cranky 15. Morgan Delt / Morgan Delt / Trouble In Mind
FEBRUARY 19, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15
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