May 13th, 2015

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The Struggle for Security Rasmea Odeh and the Arab-American Action Network ELECTED SCHOOL BOARD, BURNHAM TRAIL, JACKIE KAZARIAN

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SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is a nonprofit newsprint magazine written for and about neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago. We publish in-depth coverage of the arts and issues of public interest alongside oral histories, poetry, fiction, interviews, and artwork from local photographers and illustrators. Started as a student paper at the University of Chicago, the South Side Weekly is now an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting cultural and civic engagement on the South Side, and to providing educational opportunities for developing journalists, writers, and artists.

Editor-in-Chief Osita Nwanevu Executive Editor Bess Cohen Managing Editors Jake Bittle, Olivia Stovicek Politics Editors Christian Belanger, Rachel Schastok Education Editor Mari Cohen Music Editor Maha Ahmed Stage & Screen Lucia Ahrensdorf Editor Visual Arts Editors Lauren Gurley, Robert Sorrell Editors-at-Large John Gamino, Bea Malsky,

Meaghan Murphy, Hannah Nyhart Contributing Editors Julia Aizuss, Austin Brown,

Sarah Claypoole, Emeline Posner, Hafsa Razi Social Media Editor Emily Lipstein Web Editor Andrew Koski Visuals Editor Ellie Mejia Layout Editors Adam Thorp, Baci Weiler Senior Writers: Patrick Leow, Jack Nuelle, Stephen Urchick Staff Writers: Olivia Adams, Max Bloom, Amelia Dmowska, Mark Hassenfratz, Maira Khwaja, Jeanne Lieberman, Zoe Makoul, Olivia Myszkowski, Jamison Pfeifer, Kari Wei Staff Photographers: Camden Bauchner, Juliet Eldred, Kiran Misra, Siddhesh Mukerji, Luke White Staff Illustrators: Jean Cochrane, Lexi Drexelius, Wei Yi Ow, Amber Sollenberger, Teddy Watler, Julie Wu Journalist-in-Residence Yana Kunichoff Editorial Intern Clyde Schwab Webmaster Shuwen Qian Business Manager Harry Backlund The paper is produced by an all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city. We distribute each Wednesday in the fall, winter, and spring, with breaks during April and December. Over the summer we publish monthly.

Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to: South Side Weekly 1212 E. 59th Street Ida Noyes Hall #030 Chicago, IL 60637 For advertising inquiries, contact: (773)234-5388 or advertising@southsideweekly Read our stories online at southsideweekly.com

Cover art by Ellie Meija.

IN CHICAGO 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

Wake Up, Dr. West In “Breathe In, Breathe Out,” Kanye West says he’s “always had a PhD—a Pretty Huge Dick.” Good for him, we guess, but now he’s also got an honorary Doctorate of fine arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Upon receiving the degree this week, West gave a ninety-minute speech about inspiration, originality, Chicago, gratefulness, and, most of all, Kanye West. The Weekly steadfastly refuses to indulge in any of the hundreds of Graduation - and College Dropout - related jokes that are crying out to be made right now.

Instead, we issue our sincere congratulations to you, Kanye, as well as our sincere thanks: as everybody knows, you brought real rap back.

They’re Coming It’s a bird...it’s a plane...it’s 35 million monarch butterflies?! Every year, butterflies that spent the winter months in the forests of Mexico take a 2500-mile trek north to more temperate summer climates.

None of the butterflies that initially leave Mexico in March make it to Chicago: the move north requires four generations, since monarch butterflies only live for a month. Most of their energy is expended on reproduction (females lay hundreds of eggs at a time), even though these dainty creatures are capable of flying at speeds between twelve and twenty-five miles per hour. Unfortunately, the number of butterflies in the Chicagoland region has decreased by over ninety percent in the past twenty years. But take heart! Residents of Chicago can help these butterflies in their migration by creating butterfly-friendly habitats in their yards: planting milkweed bushes provides shelter and food for monarchs (but not food for humans) in all stages of their life cycle.

Impaired Judgment A recent Freedom of Information Act request of 2014 data has revealed a slight discrepancy in the relationship between which districts have the most DUI arrests and which have been the targests of DUI crackdowns. CPD officers have focused on mostly black and Hispanic neighborhoods for their DUI and traffic infraction crackdowns, resulting in abundant fines for minor offenses like seatbelt violations, no insurance, no driver’s license—but rarely actual DUI arrests. These singled-out districts include Calumet Heights, Avalon Park, South Chicago, and Garfield Park and are found primarily on the South and West sides. The districts that had the most actual DUI arrests include Montclare, as well as portions of Logan Square and Humboldt Park.

Bye-Bye to Bus-Bunching It’s a classic CTA story—the display said the next bus would arrive in six minutes, but ten have passed and there’s not a bus in sight.

Just when you wonder whether it would just be faster to hop on the bus going in the opposite direction and ride the entire route, the bus pulls up––but no, there are two! Three! More buses and empty seats than you could have dreamed of, but if only the buses had come according to the schedule... This trying phenomenon, “bus-bunching,” may be on its way out. The Tribune reported this week that the CTA is replacing its fifteen-year-old communication system with new technology, which will hopefully keep the buses on schedule.

It’s not a “cure-all,” but “has shown promising results,” according to CTA employees. But if this really is goodbye to bus-bunching, will we have anything left to complain to the CTA about? Wait...of course we will.

IN THIS ISSUE the struggle for security

extending the burnham greenway

new era, outdated policies

“Our faces—immigrants’ faces in general—are made to be the faces of the enemy abroad.”

It’s easy to forget that such places exist within the city limits.

“That corner we leave unpainted so that every day we remember our beginnings.”

zach taylor...4 education without representation

Some residents are ambivalent towards centralized education power in a city that has never administered schools with an elected school board isaac stein...7

will cabaniss...10 processing a tragedy

“I wanted to celebrate the culture that survived in Armenia. But even with that, I knew in my gut that the sadness would come out.”

emeline posner...13 the first lady lives in chicago

Michelle herself remains a little elusive in Michelle Obama: A Life adam thorp...16

emiliano burr di mauro...12

MAY 13, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3

The Struggle for Security

Rasmea Odeh and the Arab-American Action Network continue to mobilize in post-9/11 America

BY ZACH TAYLOR

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ven among the countless local groups of activists to organize Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Chicago, the Arab American Action Network usually tends to supply enough people power to at least be spotted in several retweets by protesters. Rasmea Odeh, AAAN’s Assistant Director, was photographed a couple weeks ago, stone-faced, holding a sign reading “STOP KILLING BLACK PEOPLE” at the emergency rally in solidarity with Baltimore’s Freddie Gray protestors.

Like the voices behind Black Lives Matter, the activism of Odeh and the AAAN is motivated by perceived abuses from those given the authority to protect, and by a marginalized community’s need for protection.

The Arab-American Action Network headquarters is on the second floor of a Dollar Shop at 63rd and Kedzie. The office’s unmarked door is the result of a 2001 fire that investigators concluded was a case of arson targeting the AAAN. The culprits were never identified, but the fire came after a series of threatening phone calls and e-mails in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001. Arabs in the area know to enter the markaz, or “center” in Arabic, through the black door next to the Checks Cashed sign.

Chicagoland is home to one of the largest Palestinian populations outside of Palestine, with large Palestinian communities in Marquette Park, Gage Park, Chicago Lawn, and other areas surrounding the AAAN, which in addition to serving as a meeting place for Arab Chicagoans is also a center for social services and youth activist training. In many ways, the two worlds the AAAN works in are radically different.

On the one hand, it deals in brick-by-brick community building by providing after school programs and holding community events. On the other hand, the broad political landscape of the War on Terror and its impact lives of its members have meant they are constantly grappling with what it means to be Arab, especially Palestinian, in post-9/11 America. The organization and its members have often been the target of

racial profiling on the part of individuals who equate Arab descent with acts of violent extremism; they have also been subject to government investigations of suspected terrorist-related activity.

The AAAN was founded in 1972 as the Arab Community Center with the hope of facilitating a unified Arab identity. At present it predominantly serves immigrants and refugees with limited access to social services. In addition to its political organizing work and educational programs for youth, the AAAN’s Family Empowerment Program provides access to Medicaid, food stamps, ESL (English as Second Language) classes, and more.

“The founders and other members of ACC knew that they didn’t exist in a vacuum and needed to focus on institutionalizing themselves and working on organizing local communities,” says Executive Director Hatem Abudayyeh, “ Helping people get jobs, find apartments, Social Security—dealing with all kinds of social services.” It was for this reason in 1995 that the ACC obtained non-profit status under the name Arab American Action Network. Abudayyeh says that these resources are essential to defending and empowering the Arab-American community against the “new, vicious draconian policies that continue today.”

“The Patriot Act is still in full force, inciting massive political repression of Arab and Muslim communities,” says Abudayyeh. “We see an increase of entrapment of Arab and Muslim men in Chicago and New York, across the country, really. We have a pretty clear political line in that regard. We see that for the U.S. government to justify these policies and an unending war on terrorism abroad, they needed to identify a local identity. Our faces—immigrants’ faces in general—are made to be the faces of the enemy abroad.”

In 2010, Abudayyeh was one of twenty-three Palestinian activists and non-Palestinian solidarity activists (their supporters have dubbed them the Antiwar 23) in Chicago and Minneapolis who were subpoenaed or whose homes were raided by the FBI due to suspicions of material support of

terrorist activity. The “Antiwar 23” did not testify, and none were ever officially charged, but according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, the investigation will continue for up to two more years.

“All this time they have this looming over their head. Whatever they find on you, they’ll use against you,” explained AAAN youth organizer Nesreen (who asked that her last name not be used).

Nesreen believes that during the investigation into the Antiwar 23, the FBI looked into other AAAN employees, including its Associate Director, Rasmea Odeh, whose case has since become a symbol for the repression of Arab-American activists, and Palestinians in particular, across the country.

In October 2013, Odeh was charged with lying on her immigration forms during the naturalization process. Born in Palestine, the now sixty-seven year old Odeh neglected to disclose a 1969 conviction for her involvement in a fatal grocery store bombing in Jerusalem. In 1970, an Israeli military court sentenced her to life in prison, but she was released to Lebanon after ten years through a prisoner swap between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, where she continued to advocate for Palestinian liberation. She did not mention the 1969 conviction on her naturalization forms, because she claims she’d read the question as asking whether she had been convicted of a crime in the United States.

Odeh was ultimately convicted in November 2014 of Unlawful Procurement of Naturalization, and on March 12 she was stripped of her United States citizenship and sentenced to eighteen months in prison, after which she will most likely be deported to Jordan. Between 2008 and 2012, 17,000 deported Palestinian-Americans were released back onto the U.S. because it’s nearly impossible to obtain a visa from most countries for Palestinians. “Rasmea was born in Lifta, near Deir Yassin, but we’re thinking if she’s deported she’ll go to Jordan,” says Nesreen. “You just never know. With Palestinians, if you get deported, you’re definitely not going back home.”

During the November 2014 tri-

ACTIVISM

al, Judge Gershwin Drain made several pre-trial rulings that prevented Odeh and her lawyers from presenting evidence related to events relevant to the case that occurred before Odeh came to the United States, such as her claims that the confession for the bombing was extracted through torture and sexual assault, which resulted in posttraumatic stress disorder. These limitations on the evidence presented are the basis for Odeh’s appeal, set for September.

Throughout her case, Odeh has continued her work with the AAAN, and members of the AAAN have mobilized to support Odeh in return. Her initial arrest in 2013 lasted only one day because colleagues and family members were able to make her bail, and in mid-December, an anonymous donor also made her bail. She has returned to her work, writing grants, attending public Black Lives Matter demonstrations, and speaking on panels, as well as continuing to direct the AAAN’s daily work, but beyond this, she has stayed away from the press, at her lawyers’ suggestion.

“Her whole story is on public record,’ says Nesreen. “The embassy has it all. Coming here, of course she knows it’s all on public record. Why is it all brought up now?

We definitely believe that it all goes back to Hatem.”

“We believe, and her attorneys filed a motion saying this was a case of the fruit from the forbidden tree,” she continues.

“They only found this fault because they were trying to get at the Midwest 23.”

According to Nesreen, the Arab and Palestinian community has become aware of the political repression by authorities like Hatem’s investigator, U.S. Assistant Attorney Barry Jonas. Jonas is best known for prosecuting the “Holy Land Five,” a group of Palestinian members of a Muslim charity called the Holy Land Foundation, who raised funds to aid Palestinians under occupation. They were initially charged in 2001 with serving as the main financial source for Hamas, a controversial resistance party in Gaza, but no conclusive evidence was found. The indictment was changed in 2004 to simply providing material aid for Hamas.

After the first trial ended in a hung jury

lexi drexelius

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ACTIVISM in 2009, a jury concluded that all five were guilty and assigned prison sentences ranging from fifteen to sixty five years.

Odeh has been an organizer with the AAAN since 2004 and founded the organization’s Arab Women’s Committee to create a safe space for women in the community to discuss problems at home, issues of racism, financial hardships, or life back in home countries. The Committee played an adhesive role in the AAAN, and has compiled stories of the difficulties they’ve faced as immigrant women in this country, which will soon be published as a volume in both Arabic and English. In the wake of Odeh’s conviction the members of the Committee have been central to the AAAN’s organizing to

members of the AAAN came to Nesreen in 2012 with stories of FBI agents raiding their homes. “We knew that it was time to confront that issue—of entrapment, racial profiling, and all that,” Nesreen says. Within two months the team created a survey to send out to families on the South Side and in the Southwest suburbs. More than four hundred surveys were collected, and they are currently in the process of compiling a report to distribute.

“The Antiwar 23 … Rasmea, and the Palestinians around us are familiar with the job of the government: to target those who threaten the ways the government wants to exploit people and halt transformative social justice movements,” says Abudayyeh. “Any-

“The Antiwar 23... Rasmea, and the Palestinians around us are familiar with the job of the government: to target those who threaten the ways the government wants to exploit people and halt transformative social justice movements.” support her. “The women in the Committee love Rasmea,” Nesreen says. “She serves such an important role here.”

Though she is currently facing the possibility of imprisonment and deportation Odeh continues to agitate for her own case and for the Arab-American community.

Nesreen is hopeful for her mentor, despite the seemingly overwhelming odds. “What they wanted Rasmea to do was sit back in the corner like a quiet lady,” she says. “I think what drove them nuts is that, if anything, she did even more organizing work.”

Despite weeks of phone calls and e-mails to those critical of Odeh and her supporters, including Jonas, few of these supporters were able to be reached, and fewer agreed to speak about the connections between Odeh’s case and other cases involving Palestinians in Chicago or the United States.

The AAAN’s main project right now is the Anti-Racial Profiling Campaign, which began shortly after a number of young 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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one in this country, whether it be the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam, Chicano liberation movements, environmental rights movements, queer liberation movements, indigenous liberation movements…social justice movements in general are repressed.

We are just part of this trend.”

Since its inception in 1972, the AAAN (then the Arab Community Center) has built connections with several local arms of the Puerto Rican independence movement, Chicano liberation groups, black liberation groups, immigration activists, among others. “It was inherently joint struggle work,” says Abudayyeh. In addition to recreational activities, cultural events, and political workshops, each semester in the after school program that Nesreen leads for fourteen to eighteen year-olds, includes a power mapping activity to teach participants about local movements for Puerto Rican, black, and Chicano liberation. “Our movement is not the only movement that struggles,” Nesreen says.

EDUCATION

Education Without Representation Chicago activists advocate for an elected school board even as some elected officials support a mayor-appointed model

BY ISAAC STEIN

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ellie mejia

arlier this year, the Chicago Teachers Union and various social activist groups joined to draft a referendum that was included on the ballot of the February 24 mayoral runoff election in thirty-seven wards. The referendum, which asked voters whether they would prefer Chicago Public Schools to adopt an elected school board as opposed to the current, mayor-appointed model, was met with at least 80 percent approval in every ward in which it was on the ballot.

Because the referendum was “non-binding,” the City Council is not obligated to take any action based on the vote, and the rules can only change if the Illinois legislature takes action. But the outcome has shown that a significant number of residents are ambivalent towards centralized education power in a city that has never administered schools with an elected school board, especially after controversial CPS decisions like school closings. The issue became particularly prominent during the mayoral election, when candidate Jesus “Chuy” Garcia included an elected board as part of his campaign platform. However, Mayor Rahm Emanuel does not support an elected board, and in January he characterized the referendum as an effort to “trick people by having a political campaign issue as a way to fixing our schools,” as the Tribune reported.

While Emanuel was ultimately elected over Garcia, groups active on the issue look to continue pressuring the state legislature to restructure the system.

In the ’80s, a number of highly critical assessments of CPS—including a 1987 statement from then-U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett that “I’m not sure there’s a system as bad as the Chicago sys-

tem”—created an atmosphere of school reform in the city and led Illinois lawmakers to decentralize education administration by opening up opportunities for community input. After that year, the mayor of Chicago appointed members to the Chicago Board of Education who had been drawn from a pool of nominees, pre-selected by an elected committee of community members. In another attempt to build in a degree of power-sharing between the mayor and community, the legislation also created Chicago’s Local School Councils (LSCs).

LSCs, which still exist at CPS schools, are boards of teachers, parents, and community members that may hire and fire school principals and manage the budgets of individual schools. Mayor Emanuel has supported the LSCs as an alternative to an elected board.

However, decentralization did not achieve all of the desired effects and created some problems in the board member selection process: according to Catalyst Chicago, “former Mayor Richard M. Daley left some seats open rather than choose any of the nominees.” In 1995, the pre-selection process for appointees to the Board of Education was discarded by an act of the Illinois State Legislature titled The Chicago School Reform Amendatory Act that moved back toward centralization. Under the legislation, CPS became a corporate-style system, and future mayors could appoint Chicago board nominees of their choice.

Jitu Brown, the Education Organizer of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO), an advocacy group which focuses on black, low-income families and supported the organizing efforts behind the referendum, said the objective of the referendum was to advocate for an MAY 13, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

EDUCATION elected CPS board that includes members from four city regions. He added that the poverty of some South Side communities has historically precluded them from being politically active with respect to CPS. “We’re not proposing that type of system that [Chicago] had prior to the ’90s, when CPS was governed by a Board of Trustees that were appointed by local aldermen,” Brown said. “Instead, we’re proposing an elected thirteen-member school board in which people from all four regions—South, Southwest, West Central, and North—are

and knowledge of parents, educators, and students are essential to good educational decision making…elected school boards can create conditions for democratic public participation.”

For Brown, the presence of these business interests within the Board is a symptom of a larger problem; he argues that appointed school boards are a contemporary mechanism for disenfranchising blacks.

“I view [appointed school boards] as a violation of the Voting Rights Act, as they create situations of no taxation without rep-

“Under the current structure, the only people who can dedicate their time [to the school board] are millionaires. And we are versed in what happens to schools when millionaires and business govern policy.” all represented. The representatives should also be compensated. Under the current structure, the only people who can dedicate their time [to the school board] are millionaires. And we are versed in what happens to schools when millionaires and business govern policy.”

An oft-stated criticism of the Board is that it represents large business interests as opposed to optimal education outcomes for students, and that this situation is enabled by the mayor’s power over appointments.

Both Chuy Garcia and 2nd Ward Alderman Bob Fioretti made this argument in February.

At present, all board members except Carlos Azcoitia, who works as a professor at National Louis University, have ties to private equity, consulting, or business. “The Board is composed primarily of corporate executives, while the district is eighty-two percent students of color and eighty-six percent low-income students whose communities have no role in school district decisions,” a 2011 report, authored by Pauline Lipman and Rico Gutstein, professors at the University of Illinois at Chicago stated.

“This is problematic because perspectives 8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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resentation,” he said. “You only really see them in areas where blacks and Latinos are the majority; there are plenty of poor white folk in West Virginia, and they have elected boards. Appointment is a racist policy that focuses on children of color…it’s a devaluing of some people’s lives.”

A revised UIC report for 2015 found “no conclusive evidence that mayor-appointed boards are more effective at governing schools or raising student achievement” and argued that Chicago’s elected school board may have contributed to widening racial disparities in city education.

CPS declined to comment for this article. However, Michael O’Neill, the chairman of the Boston School Committee (BSC), the mayor-appointed board that administers Boston Public Schools, responded to Brown’s criticisms that appointed boards in general are a manifestation of business interests and a violation of citizens’ civil liberties.

O’Neill said that Boston’s mayor-appointed model—which resembles Chicago Board appointment from 1988-1995, when the mayor could only appoint pre-selected candidates—has been significantly more ef-

ficient than the elected administration that preceded it, particularly with respect to ensuring desegregation of schools. In the 1972 federal lawsuit Morgan v. Hennigan, the then-elected school committee was charged with promoting racial segregation in Boston schools and was ultimately ordered to bus minority students into white enclaves to reduce the level of de facto segregation.

O’Neill added that the mayor-appointed structure of the Chicago Board allows it to make policy decisions in the best interest of students, without having to worry about whether those choices will be politically unpopular. He also said that he knows of school administrators in other cities who spend large sums of money on their election campaigns to run for the Board, and that this feature of elections detracts from time spent on policymaking.

“The Supreme Court of the United States, for example, is appointed, not elected,” he said. “Also, the mayor of Boston can only appoint members that are approved by an advisory council, which includes representatives of the teacher’s union and parent organizations. A school board must be representative of gender, ethnic, and professional diversity.”

O’Neill, who, in addition to his work with the Boston Board, is currently employed as the Executive Vice President of 451 Marketing, a Boston-based firm, said that his professional background has been particularly useful in tackling budget issues in the school.

Speaking specifically with respect to CPS, Jitu Brown said that the quality of education within the district is not uniform, and that creating an elected school board is only one necessary step towards addressing that issue. “[KOCO] doesn’t view elected representation as a solution, but rather as a necessary ingredient to improving the schools,” Brown said. “Similarly, appointed boards are a necessary ingredient to privatization.

There are [CPS] schools in Lincoln Park and Edgewater, where every teacher has a TA, and every student has an iPad. Then, you have elementary schools on the South Side with forty-two kindergarteners per class. Those babies [in Lincoln Park and Edgewater] deserve the education that they are receiving. But ours do, too, and at some point, we have to be honest.”

Cheryl Robinson, director of People for Community Recovery, an environmental awareness group based in Altgeld Gardens that also supported the non-binding refer-

endum, added that she was dissatisfied with the expansion of charter and selective-enrollment schools in the last decade of CPS administration. She attributes the trend to the board, which she sees as dominated by interests that value budget balancing over education outcomes for the majority of students. She cited the Magic Johnson Bridgescape Academy, a group of four charter schools that largely enroll high-school age students who have previously dropped out, as an example of the problem.

“People make millions of dollars through contracts with the charters,” Robinson said. “Magic Johnson gets his Magic Johnson school, and it issues a diploma in four months. What kind of a diploma is that? Meanwhile, his company gets a $60 million janitorial contract; it’s exploitation at its best. Magic should be ashamed of himself, and his mother should have taught him that morality is more important than money.”

Going forward, activists including Brown and Robinson are turning to pressure local and state government to fight for an elected school board. For a “binding” citywide referendum on the issue of elected school boards to take place, the Illinois legislature must nullify or amend the Chicago School Amendatory Reform Act, which granted the mayor of Chicago the ability to select the members of the school board. As reported by the Tribune, a bill that specifically called for an elected school board died in the Illinois House in 2013.

The outcomes of recent Chicago and Illinois elections may have an impact on the possibilities of moving to an elected school board. Elected school board advocates do not have an ally in Governor Bruce Rauner, who has said he does not support it. Garcia, according to his campaign website, thinks a democratic school board is a constitutional right, and he claimed in his campaign that, if elected, he would lobby in Springfield for an elected school board and file a federal suit if unsuccessful. The victor Emanuel has not mentioned any such plans, since he does not support a change in school board structure.

Still, Brown said he thinks that over the next five years, the issue will become too pressing for legislators to table it.

“In order for a binding referendum to go forward, we need a bill signed by Governor Rauner that is supported by a groundswell of people,” he said. “The issue will become increasingly politically sticky, and I think that a refusal to sign could cost him his job in a few years.”

FOOD

MAY 13, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

The Burnham Greenway trail acts as a small window into Chicago’s natural history, cutting through the remnants of a once-vast oak forest that wraps around Wolf Lake, itself the focus of an ecological rehabilitation project. It’s easy to forget that such places exist within city limits.

Right: Wolf Lake, just a few steps from the Burnham Greenway, offers a picnic spot with a view.

A Ride Down the Burnham Greenway Trail

BY WILL CABANISS

photos by will cabaniss

At East 104th St., a bike trail abruptly emerges from the shadows of the Chicago Skyway. It’s the start of an ecosystem of trails far less traveled than the crowded Lakefront Trail. The Burnham Greenway is about to undergo a $6 million federally funded extension, which is slated for completion in 2016.

Right: The Burnham Greenway Trail currently runs from 104th to 126th and Avenue O.

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TRAILS MUSIC The pavement ends after only a few miles, replaced by a gravel trail unkind to thin tires.

This is where the extension will begin, leading riders down through Hegewisch, past factories and electrical transformers, across railroad tracks and into Burnham, just outside the city limits.

Left: The beginning of the proposed extension at 126th and South Avenue O, slated to be paved by the end of the year.

By linking the city’s trails to the South Century Loop, a proposed hundred-mile trail touring Chicago’s south suburbs, the Burnham addition will allow for a continuous ride from Edgewater to Joliet and potentially entice a new wave of bikers to explore the textures of the land on the Far South Side.

Left: Once completed, the Burnham extension will connect to the Southland Century Trail Extension, which passes over train tracks in Dolton as it goes west towards the Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve.

MAY 13, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

VISUAL ARTS

Painter Jackie Kazarian commemorates the centennial of the Armenian genocide with a painting at Mana Contemporary

Processing a Tragedy

BY EMILIANO BURR DI MAURO

courtesy of mana contemporary

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ithin the historical context of violent persecution, artists have continually attempted to manifest the tragedy and triumph of the human spirit, so that they may commemorate, celebrate, criticize, and perhaps even better understand themselves. Painter Jackie Kazarian navigates this ongoing narrative with her latest work, Armenia (Hayasdan), an impressive eleven-and-a-half by twenty-six foot painting which commemorates the one-hundredth anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

Hanging in a gallery space at Mana Contemporary in Pilsen, the painting dutifully carries the historical and emotional weight of the first major genocide of the twentieth century—when 1.5 million Armenian subjects living in Ottoman Turkey were systematically killed, millions more forced to flee, and enormous parts of a rich culture almost entirely erased. This is the painting’s first stop of many on a tour across the United States as part of Project 1915, established by Kazarian to commemorate this anniversary.

Such far-reaching subject matter, however, does not come without a personal narrative; Kazarian, who is of Armenian descent and Chicago origin, is no exception. Her family was one of two Armenian families in her community—a result of her parents’ conscious decision to remove themselves from the Armenian community, 12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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choosing to speak English over their native language. This vast mural, however, is not the first time she has explored her heritage through painting. In the mid-1990s, when her last grandparent died, she created wallpaper-like works inspired by her childhood memories of the intricate wallpaper in her grandmother’s home. It was not until after thirty years of painting, Kazarian says, that she felt that she had reached a comfortable enough place in her career—professionally and stylistically—to make this painting.

“If I kept it personal throughout the whole process, I felt like I had a right to paint about this and could gain some sort of legitimacy,” Kazarian explained. That process began in March of last year, when she went to the Armenian Library and Museum of America in Watertown, Massachusetts, researching references and images that she would return to time and time again while working on the painting.

Kazarian’s own narrative aside, the success of the piece largely depends on its overwhelming visual qualities. Armenia (Hayasdan) has a deeply organic nature, demonstrated in the physicality of the bold paint strokes and its depiction of a sweeping landscape and sky. The terrain, however, is not without structural elements—Kazarian has painted an architecturally accurate church nestled in the middle ground of the piece, representing the rich religious background of Ottoman Turkey. The painting is

monochromatic within the foreground but becomes increasingly colorful as the viewer’s eye travels towards what Kazarian calls the “celestial heavens.” At the forefront of the piece, though, is an uplifting sentiment, rather than one of grief or mourning.

“I wanted to celebrate the culture that survived in Armenia. But even with that, I knew in my gut that the sadness would come out,” Kazarian says.

Two personal aspects reaffirm the vibrancy of the piece in particular: silkscreened imprints of her grandmother’s handmade lace are scattered throughout, accompanied by two vast outlines of outstretched hands representing those of her grandmother. The hands do not give the impression of helplessness or plea but rather of comfort and security. “The thing that makes me tick is seeing beautiful things develop from difficult situations,” Kazarian says in a short documentary posted on her website.

While Kazarian finds herself in a position to express her personal connection to the event, she is also aware of her role in contextualizing the bigger picture. The goals of the painting are surely not singular. She attempts to commemorate while creating a sense of exposure for something that many people know nothing about.

“I want to bring attention to the general public, and create some sort of discourse on the travesty of genocide and what that means for our collective history,” Kazarian

says. As for why some do not know much about the Armenian Genocide, Kazarian points toward the intentional erasure and mitigation of history by the modern-day Turkish and Armenian governments.

Early on, when Kazarian first thought up the idea to do a painting of such large scale, her mind turned to Picasso’s Guernica, a work commemorating the aerial bombing of the civilian population in the Spanish town of Guernica in 1937. Armenia (Hayasdan) is the same size as Guernica as a way to pay tribute to a work that responded to a tragedy so effectively.

Kazarian says “It had certain import when Picasso made Guernica, because he was so outraged. But people know about Guernica and remember it and know about the events because of that painting.” While Picasso and Kazarian’s responses to different tragedies are rightfully distinct from one another, both aim to raise awareness of particular occurrences.

As much as this painting may offer commemoration of an important anniversary, it comes with the hardening reminder that no matter how much time separates us from these travesties, they do not become less confounding. As Project 1915 continues, it is humbling to realize that the process of understanding such an event—and the personal narratives and widespread acknowledgment that should accompany it— is never finished.

INDUSTRY

New Era, Outdated Policies Can Chicago better support worker-owned cooperatives?

BY EMELINE POSNER

photos by emeline posner

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rmando Robles knew that his suspicions of Republic Windows and Doors’ closure were well-founded when, on a late November night in 2008 just days after a mass layoff, he saw nine trucks being loaded with the machinery he operated for work. Several days later, Robles was prepared to take action when the manufacturing company announced its imminent closure—effectively breaking the WARN Act, which requires that companies give warning of closure sixty days in advance.

What Robles didn’t know was that the Republic’s closure would be the first in a series

of events that would ultimately deliver the factory into the hands of its workers.

Robles first encountered advocates of cooperative business in 2006, when he was sent on behalf of his union—Local 1110 of the United Electrical Workers—to the World Social Forum in Venezuela. “One guy was telling me about co-ops. I don’t pay too much attention, but he says that we can be our own bosses. I ask him how that works, and he tries to explain but I don’t understand much.”

Only after six trying years of mercurial worker-investor relations did workers seri-

ously consider cooperative ownership a viable option. The weeklong, highly publicized occupation of the Republic factory in 2008 won the 270 workers the pay owed to them, but didn’t win them their jobs. When Serious Energy took over the factory in 2008, it re-hired seventy of those workers, only to close down four years later, inciting yet another occupation in the name of workers’ rights. This time, the workers won severance pay, as well as the time to find funding to buy the machinery from Serious.

The freedoms promised by a cooperative factory—secure livelihood, self-set wagMAY 13, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

Today, New Era stands testament to the capacity of a small group to purchase and successfully run its own business.

But there were few cooperatives to begin with in Chicago, and fewer have followed New Era’s example.

es, self-governance—were appealing, even if the responsibilities were daunting. In 2012 eighteen of the workers, including Robles, ultimately agreed to buy into New Era at the price of $1,000 each.

Today, New Era stands testament to the ability of a small group of workers to purchase and successfully run its own business. But there were few cooperatives to begin with in Chicago, and fewer have followed New Era’s example. This raises the question—could Chicago better accommodate the cooperative, which has increasingly been discussed as a viable alternative to the traditionally structured business? Does the city of Chicago’s business policy need an update?

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topping by New Era on a quiet Thursday afternoon, I find an orange tabby cat eyeing me from beside a row of model windows. The tabby—and another, more elusive cat—belongs to Robles. “We’ve got a couple rats in the factory,” he admits.

“The cats are a good solution.”

The entire factory seems to operate on this same principle of resourcefulness. “You see that?” Robles points to a dark corner that contrasts with the uniformly white walls.

“When we first moved in, the entire space looked like that. Everything you see—the walls, the pipes, the wires, the machinery— we moved, installed, fixed ourselves. That corner we leave unpainted so that every day we remember our beginnings.”

New Era has been operative for two years now. Robles says that wages today are approximately four dollars per hour higher than in 2013, when they hovered close to 14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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the minimum wage, and the company is now nearing self-sufficiency. But the workers, no matter how resilient, would never have been able to bring their cooperative vision to fruition without the financial and technical resources of external organizations.

The Working World, a nonprofit that gives out investment capital and technical support for developing cooperatives, provided the $665,000 in initial capital New Era needed to buy machinery from Serious Energy, transport it, and secure a new factory space. The Working World’s “loan” is not traditional. There are no late payment fees, no exorbitant interest rate; New Era simply pays back the money as soon as it is able to.

On top of that, the workers, most with backgrounds in manufacturing, needed to master financial and management skills that often require years of study. Fortunately, New Era workers had the advantage of being members of United Electrical Workers, a democratic union that operates on what they call “rank-and-file unionism.” Through the union’s progressive structure, New Era workers already had extensive experience establishing a constitution and negotiating contracts on their own, rather than relying on the leadership of a more traditional AFLCIO union. However, they still received extensive guidance and financial instruction from The Working World, the United Electrical Workers, and the Center for Workplace Democracy, an organization that provides resources to support worker-owned enterprises.

Without these resources––which come from limited sources––it can be even more difficult to incorporate.

Kathleen Duffy, board member of the Center for Workplace Democracy and founder of the Dill Pickle Food Cooperative, believes that investment regulations on cooperatives are unnecessarily harsh, and licensing procedures are too complicated.

With regulations better tailored to cooperatives, the Dill Pickle would have gotten off the ground much more quickly.

A change to Illinois’ century-old cooperative business law could potentially improve the standing of the cooperative. State Representative Will Guzzardi, himself a customer of the Dill Pickle, proposed such a change in February. The new law would draw from the accessible language of the International Co-op Association, upon whose values all cooperatives are founded. If approved, the law would mark the first time a workers’ cooperative like New Era, one that doesn’t sell produce, clothing, or groceries, is recognized as a legal entity in Illinois.

Though the change in legal status is unlikely to affect New Era’s day-to-day operations, the new law would likely increase general understanding about the aims and structure of cooperative organizations, and potentially ease the investment in and creation of new co-ops.

New policy would have to accompany the change in language. Brendan Martin, co-founder of The Working World, cited lack of city recognition of cooperatives as a minor source of frustration. New Era, whose employees are almost entirely Latino and African American, recently applied for Minority/Women-Owned Business Certification. The goal of this program is to spread the benefit of ownership over a broader de-

mographic, but its application requires exhaustive financial records of each owner. Its process, Martin said, was burdensome for New Era’s many owners, who don’t have financial advisors or accountants at hand the way traditional small businesses may. The certification is within reach for New Era, but its process has dragged on for a year. Martin suggested that the city offer, if nothing else, financial and legal counsel for cooperative workers.

Another approach to cooperative development entails more active financial incentivization. It could take the form of a subsidy, like the $9.6 million one the city granted Republic Window in 1996 to develop the factory in which Robles and his co-workers used to work. That kind of financial support might better serve a cooperative business, which necessarily has strong ties to the community and no interest in searching for the location with the lowest tax rates, as Republic is suspected to have been doing in 2008.

Erica Swinney, a former board member of the Center for Workplace Democracy, thinks that for a more sustainable plan, Chicago should look to cities like New York and Madison, Wisconsin, which have, respectively, set aside $1.2 million and $5 million over five years for the development of cooperative businesses. These budgets are divided between the cities’ existing and developing cooperatives, and the organizations involved have pledged to implement policies that lower barriers for worker cooperatives.

What is the likelihood of a budgetary allowance for this kind of cooperative development in a city whose primary concern is resolving its budget deficit? It’s hard to say.

INDUSTRY

Contenders against Mayor Rahm Emanuel this year took strong stances in support of cooperative development. Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia attended New Era’s ribbon cutting ceremony; Alderman Bob Fioretti, a New Era customer himself, allotted significant part of his mayoral platform to cooperative economics. Emanuel, on the other hand, has remained largely silent on the matter.

At the bare minimum, the education system could be changed. Swinney said that most people aren’t raised or schooled to view the cooperative as a viable business structure. “But at the Manufacturing Renaissance [her current organization], we actually offer

cooperative structure as a solution to small family-owned business owners that are struggling to find a successor.” The children of these families, often living in the suburbs, lack either the business experience or the interest, leaving the business to ultimately close or leave family hands.

ew Era itself will eventually have to confront this generational problem.

Its close-knit community of resilient workers has undoubtedly been key to the factory’s transition to cooperative business, but these same workers are aging. Robles has worked for Republic Windows and Doors since 2000, and many co-workers have

N

been working in the window manufacturing industry for longer. “The youngest among us is forty-five, maybe forty-six,” he said.

New Era is looking for new workers to buy into the company, though it wants to preserve the family dynamic of the business; anyone interested in buying in will have to first work a year to ensure that they work well with the group.

It’s been a long haul, but Robles doesn’t regret any sacrifice of time, effort, or sleep made for the sake of the cooperative.

“These people—my co-workers—are like brothers and sisters to me. And I really think that we’ve created something strong here.”

MAY 13, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

BOOKS

Michelle Obama: A Life

by Peter Slevin

BY ADAM THORP

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P

The First Lady Is from Chicago

eter Slevin decided to write about Michelle Obama while following the frenzied lead-up to 2008’s Iowa caucuses. Her personal story was part of the pitch at that crucial moment in her husband’s campaign.

Slevin interviewed friends and family, and drew from other writing about the First Lady in writing his new biography, Michelle Obama: A Life. These voices are almost ubiquitously friendly when he is not specifically discussing her conservative opposition. Michelle’s words are included fairly frequently, drawn from other people’s interviews with the First Lady (and one of his own from 2007, before the biography project began) and especially from her speeches on the campaign—most of the words within were for public consumption. All of this slightly deadens the book as a portrait of her personality, which is probably an inevitable consequence of writing the biography of a figure currently sitting at the center of American political and cultural life.

But if Michelle herself remains a little elusive in Slevin’s new biography, the world she lived in before she became the first black First Lady of the United States is fruitfully explored.

Take the South Side that Michelle grew up in. Its history is sketched as the background to the lives of her parents and grandparents: the Great Migration as her grandfather arrived from the South; Chicago’s machine politics when her father’s job at the city water department comes with an assignment to be a Daley-era precinct captain; segregation in real estate when her grandparents successfully move into a new apartment complex.

Or take the institutions where she received her education. When Michelle attends Princeton and then Harvard Law School, the book describes a community of black students (inside mostly-white campuses) thinking seriously about how to balance a perceived responsibility to return to

their communities with the potentially huge salaries waiting elsewhere. Michelle’s senior undergraduate thesis in sociology hypothesized that successful black Princeton graduates would be less likely to want to help less successful black people (responses to the survey she sent out suggested this was not the case).

Michelle did spend a couple of years at a high-powered law firm, where she met her future husband, who Slevin coquettishly introduces an anonymous “young community organizer.” Work at the firm ultimately did not satisfy her—she is quoted remembering herself thinking, “if I die tomorrow, what did I really do with my life? What kind of a mark would I leave? How would I be remembered?”—and she left for the nonprofit sector. Along the way, her husband’s political career began to grow, and the story links back up with the more familiar public narrative.

Sometimes Slevin’s desire to provide context can go in strange directions. It is

useful to learn about the neighborhoods around the University of Chicago when Michelle takes a job as the director of the University Community Service Center. It isn’t to learn that the Midway Plaisance is “where the first Ferris wheel carved steam-powered circles in the air during the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition,” and that “The Midway bequeathed its name to carnivals around the country.” It is interesting to know that Michelle fell in love with Barack when she saw him give a speech in a church basement to people he knew as a community organizer. It isn’t to note that it happened “in a year that would see peaceful revolutions across Central Europe and an unarmed man defying a column of tanks in China’s Tiananmen Square.”

Slevin’s careful world-building is more rewarding when he writes about Michelle’s doubts concerning the possibility of a political career for Barack. The tight-knit home she grew up in accounts, perhaps, for her desire to avoid exposing their family to disruption and scrutiny. Some knowledge about the relationship of the South Side to the Daley machine helps explain why she might be skeptical about politics as a driver of change.

The difficulty Michelle and Barack had working out solutions to these worries is the most compelling part of the book. Barack’s work at the State Legislature drew him out of the house and put pressure on Michelle’s career—a problem that would only go away when her husband became Senator and then President. There is real conflict here, and because both Barack and Michelle have reflected seriously on it in public (Barack in his campaign autobiography The Audacity of Hope and Michelle in frank interviews near the beginning of the 2008 campaign) the conflict can be examined in depth. The book suggests a sort of settlement when it quotes Michelle as saying, after a period of frustration, “I was depending on him to make me happy. Except it didn’t have anything to do

CALENDAR with him. I needed support. I didn’t necessarily need it from Barack.”

Through her husband’s political career, Michelle has been a source of “authenticity”; in her eulogy for the poet Maya Angelou, she said that she is pleased by the description. What it meant changed as the audience did. Running to be first state and then U.S. Senator, Barack was accused of not being black enough: because of Hawaii, because of Harvard, because of his white mother.

Michelle responded to this forcefully in an interview during his campaign for the U.S. Senate, saying, “I’m as black as it gets. I was

Some of the clarity of the narrative before and during the campaign is lost when the Obamas enter the White House.

It would be interesting to revisit problems Michelle considered at the beginning of her husband’s political career. Did the obstruction her husband has faced in Congress reinforce her skepticism about politics? She was concerned that her husband’s political rise would swamp her own career—has the highly visible but constrained role of First Lady been satisfying? If she was concerned that the commute to Springfield took Barack too frequently out of his children’s lives,

“I was depending on him to make me happy. Except it didn’t have anything to do with him. I needed support. I didn’t necessarily need it from Barack.”

born on the South Side. I come from an obviously black family. We weren’t rich. I put my blackness up against anybody’s blackness in this state, okay, and Barack is a black man.”

Slevin brings forward sources that saw Michelle playing this role through the South Carolina primary, where the African-American vote was decisive. But some right wing figures began to paint her as an “angry black woman,” especially after a political flap when she said, about increased political engagement around her husband’s election, “for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country.” As the general election approached, some members of the campaign decided that Michelle’s delivery on the trail was, in Slevin’s words, “becoming a liability to a black candidate who would need white swing voters to win in November.”

Her keynote speech at the Democratic Convention would cement her reintroduction to the electorate. The speech focused on her family and especially her father—a video beforehand placed her in a “regular folks frame.” She pointedly reiterated that she did love her country. Overnight tracking polls for the campaign saw her popularity shoot up after the speech and she has polled substantially better than her husband ever since (and comparably to past first ladies).

There is, of course, a core of conservatives who deeply dislike her, and Slevin briefly plumbs the depths of the often-racist vitriol.

what was that relationship like in the White House? The constant scrutiny faced by the residents of the White House is countered by strict discipline about public relations, so it’s hard to imagine how answers to these questions could have gotten out.

Instead, this section of the book focuses on the First Lady as she has appeared to the public, and especially on the campaigns she has supported from the White House against childhood obesity and in support of army families and college attendance. There is tangible frustration when Slevin talks about the East Wing’s chilly relationship to the press. He quotes the First Lady as “not a big fan” of how the media has portrayed her. Consequently, she is rarely available to members of the White House press corps.

The unguardedness of her pre-political life and the mandatory exposure of the campaign trail provided information Slevin could use. The tightly managed White House, it seems, provided less.

In his acknowledgement, Slevin says that during the 2008 campaign “it became clear that Michelle merited a book that placed her at the center of her own narrative, not simply as the wife of the famous Barack, nor simply as First Lady.” Michelle Obama: A Life makes a good case for this intuition. It also suggests that the moment when she is no longer First Lady, and, as she is quoted saying in the book, will “be able to say whatever the hell [she] want[s],” will be intriguing.

BULLETIN #TrainTakeover #TrainTakeover is back. On May 15, dozens of local performers, artists, and activists will gather at Roosevelt station to board Red Line trains going to and from the loop and fill them with songs, chants, and, hopefully, dialogue. Billing itself as a creative counterpart to the #BlackLivesMatter movement, the takeover aims to engage CTA riders, and confront racial inequality and police violence against black and brown people. This is the fourth such takeover to be organized in Chicago. The first occurred in December in response to the grand jury decisions not to indict the police involved in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. This one comes on the heels of the protests in Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray via injuries he sustained while in police custody. All Chicagoans are invited to join—be sure to wear red. Roosevelt Station, 24 E. Roosevelt Rd. Friday, May 15, 5pm. (Andrew Yang)

Kick the Kickbacks Back in 2000, Martha Wright, a Washington, D.C. grandmother, petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to stop private prisons and telecommunications companies from conspiring to establish exorbitant rates for phone calls in and out of prisons—in certain cases, families had to pay a dollar an hour to speak with inmates. Nearly a decade-and-ahalf later, in early 2014, the FCC capped interstate phone rates at $0.25 per minute; nevertheless, many people still struggle to pay rising in-state rates. On May 23, the Illinois Campaign for Prison Phone Justice will host a screening of Kick the Kickbacks, a new documentary on the issue. A panel featuring some of the people appearing in the documentary will take place after the screening, moderated by Mariame Kaba of Project NIA, an organization working to reform criminal justice and prison practices. Little Village Community Church, 2300 S. Millard Ave. Saturday, May 23, 2pm. Free. (773)277-2185. nationinside.org (Christian Belanger)

Stop the Violence?

Maybe it’s a little provocative to end the phrase “Stop the Violence” with a question mark, but the Wisdom Project is a searching sort of organization, founded on the idea that traditional education focused on testable knowledge often comes at the expense of deeper wisdom. They have a lot of questions about violence in Chicago that they aim to explore in this event, revolving around where violence comes from—its history in Chicago, its structural and emotional roots—and how it can be prevented. The event will include an open community forum and a panel discussion, featuring the perspectives of parents, teachers, business owners, and a Pan-African revolutionary.

Hales Franciscan High School, 4930 S. Cottage Grove Ave. Saturday, May 16, 4pm-7pm. Free. (646)285-8263. chicagowisdomproject.org (Adam Thorp)

Sun Ra: Astro Black Mythology and Black Resistance Celebrating the 101st birthday of Sun Ra—poet, composer, band leader, and self-professed member of the “Angel Race”— the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the UofC will host a screening of the film Space is the Place and a symposium reflecting upon his life. A pioneer of the Afrofuturism movement, Sun Ra infused his art with traces of science fiction, Black nationalism, and religion. Space is the Place, a 1974 science-fiction film written by and starring Sun Ra as a fictional version of himself, exemplifies his unique vision and unorthodox style. The symposium will explore Sun Ra’s philosophy and mythology and reflect upon their influence on contemporary resistance movements. Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Screening Thursday, May 21, 7pm; symposium Friday, May 22, 1pm-9pm. csrpc.uchicago.edu (Peter Gao)

Bars Against Bars Sponsored by Chicago Save the Kids and Sugar Baybe Management and Promotion, this event during National Week of Action Against Incarcerating Youth brings awareness to incarceration of youth in Chicago and the problems that

it causes for communities everywhere. Formerly incarcerated speakers as well as artists from Chicago and Milwaukee will be featured in the family-friendly Bronzeville community garden.

If your first impulse when reading the name of the event was to think of martinis and daiquiris, the details for the night event are still TBD.Bronzeville Community Garden, Southeast corner of 51st St. and Calumet Ave. Saturday, May 23, 11am. Free. (Lucia Ahrensdorf )

The Baltimore Rebellion! Revolt Against an American Nightmare Last month, Baltimore saw weeks of protest and much-reported rioting, sparked by the death of twenty-five-year-old Freddie Gray after he suffered fatal spinal cord injuries shackled in the back of a police van. Since the state’s attorney announced charges against six officers on May 1, the mayor has rescinded the city’s curfew, and the governor has lifted the local state of emergency. But all is not quiet in Baltimore. Revelations of widespread police misconduct continue, and coverage of and reaction to the city’s unrest have highlighted schisms in the way the country understands policing, race, and violence. Thursday at La Catrina, the Chicago Socialists will host an event with activists from the protests to argue the wider roots and implications of the protests in Baltimore. La Catrina Cafe, 1011 W. 18th St. Thursday, May 21, 7pm. Free. (312)473-0038. (Hannah Nyhart)

MUSIC Lovers in May at Arie Crown Theater It is spring, the sun is (finally) shining, and love is in the air.

Right on cue, Keith Sweat, Mint Condition, and Donnell Jones are descending from their respective thrones of R&B to croon foundational slow jams and catalyze the blooming of relationships, new and old alike. From Sweat’s classic “Nobody” to Mint Condition’s “U Send Me Swingin’,” the slick, effortless harmonies and sensual bass form a timeless soundtrack to the season.

Jones’ take on Stevie Wonder’s “Knocks Me Off My Feet” is a sweet, tear-jerking proclamation of love that’s solidified couples since 1996, and it hasn’t lost its charm over the past nineteen years. These sleek and dance-inducing refrains will all be in one place on May 15 and are the perfect introduction to spring. Arie Crown Theatre, 2301 S. Lake Shore Dr. Friday, May 15, 8pm. $80.

(312)791-6190. ariecrown.com (Kanisha Williams)

D-Erania at Mo Better Jazz This upcoming show at Mo Better Jazz, South Shore’s (self-appointed) “premier” jazz club, will feature the music of pianist-saxophonist-songwriter D-Erania (the stage name of Chicago-born Donella Stampley). Stampley describes her music as fusing the influence of funk legends like George Clinton and Stevie Wonder with the gospel tradition she encountered through her mother, a gospel musician, at an early age. D-Erania has released a number of jazz albums, including the recent “Native Beauty,” which incorporates elements of Brazilian jazz; she has also served as the weekly featured artist and maestro at Chicago’s Home of Chicken and Waffles. Mo Better Jazz, 2423 E. 75th Street. Friday, May 15, 7-11:30pm. 21+ (773)642-6254. mobetterjazzchicago.us ( Jake Bittle)

Beenie Man and Shawnna at The Shrine Erstwhile dancehall king Beenie Man and famously filthy Chicago-bred rapper Shawnna will be playing The Shrine on May 31. Beenie Man, known best for both his rowdy dancehall and his violently anti-gay lyrics (as well as many back-andforths in the press about whether or not he’s apologized for them), hasn’t released an album since 2006. Since becoming bogged down in the PR battle over his lyrics, his only notable semi-recent appearance was on Kanye’s “Send It Up.” Shawnna, similarly, hasn’t released anything since the 2012 mixtape She’s Alive. Here’s hoping they both try out some new material. The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Sunday, May 31, 10pm. $35. 21+.

(312)753-5681. theshrinechicago.com (Sam Stecklow)

Mud Queens at Reggies This Saturday, the floors of Reggies, that ever-dependable (yet

MAY 13, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 17

routinely unpredictable) South Loop rock club, will be covered in mud during a rare performance by the Mud Queens, Chicago’s (self-proclaimed) only “mud wrestling troupe.” The troupe will duke it out in staged matches while the Mud Queens band plays driving rock on stage to accompany the brawls. At least, we think that’s how it’s going to work. Look, the stage name of one of the “veterans” is Malice in Plunderland. Does anything else really need to be said about this? Get down, get dirty, get deafened. Reggies Rock Club, 2105 S. State St. Saturday, May 16, doors 9pm. $12-15. 17+. (312)949-0120. reggieslive.com ( Jake Bittle)

Johnny Polygon at Reggies Johnny Polygon is playing at Reggies this Monday, so be there or be square (it had to be said). Hailing from Tulsa and currently working in New York and LA, the prolific young artist has shaped his own soulful style of hip-hop, with melodic production and artful and distinct lyrics. Polygon takes clear influence from both his Midwestern roots and his residence in LA. His first mixtape, Rebel Without Applause, featured the uplifting single “The Riot Song.” After releasing several albums himself, he signed with DJ Lantern’s Music Group label and worked with stars like Nas and Kid Cudi. However, in 2010 the artist returned to releasing albums independently, the newest of which is The Nothing, released in 2013 and marking a vertex for Polygon’s career. Join Johnny Polygon at Reggies for a soulful, spirited show, or visit Record Breakers from 7pm–9pm for a meet and greet. Reggies Chicago, 2105 S. State St. Monday, May 18, 9pm. $5. 21+. (312)949-0120. reggieslive.com (Clyde Schwab)

Sticks and Stones Debuts at the Promontory This Thursday’s concert at the Promontory will see the debut of jazz combo Sticks and Stones, led not by a saxophonist or a drummer but by vibraphonist (and composer) Preyas Roy. What is a vibraphone, you may ask? (I certainly did.) The name may not be familiar (vibraphonist Jay Hoggard joked that he would ask his co-instrumentalists, “What is that thing called that you play?”), but the percussion instrument, similar in appearance to a xylophone but with a far more complex and sophisticated sound, has been around for over a century.

Roy, for his part, has been playing the vibes for close to two decades. With Brent Griffin Jr on the alto sax, Scott Hesse on guitar, Andrew Vogt playing the bass, and Vince Davis at the drums, Sticks and Stones should be able to weave a rich musical tapestry out of Roy’s rhythmic innovations. The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Thursday, May 14, 8pm, doors 7pm. $10.

(312)801-2100. promontorychicago.com (Olivia Stovicek)

STAGE AND SCREEN Sins of the Father at eta Creative Successful blues singer Calieb “Tigereye” Hamilton suddenly returns home to his adult son and aging father after a nineyear absence. However, the joy of his homecoming is quickly clouded over by family secrets past and present. What dark truths must be revealed in order to save this family? And will they be able to forgive each other? Family drama and moody ballads prevail in Synthia Williams’s four-man production, Sins of the Father, a part of eta Creative’s 2015-2016 Season of Plays. eta Creative Arts Foundation, 7558 S. South Chicago Avenue. April 17 through June 7. Friday, 8pm; Saturday, 10am; Sunday, 3pm. $35 general, $25 for seniors, $15 for students. (773)752-3955. etacreativearts.org (Dagny Vaughn)

Story Club South Side Hot on the heels of the Weekly’s May 6 cover story on both Great and avian migrations comes Story Club South Side’s meditation on migrations “made, attempted, bungled, salvaged, new or old.” Featured performers including essayist Michelle Cabral, storyteller Charles Hinriksson, poet Erin Watson, and producer of The Stoop Clarence Browley will come to roost at Bridgeport’s Co-Prosperity Sphere on Tuesday night. After

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listening to their tales, preferably while munching on something savory or sweet (Story Club South Side is enthusiastically BYOPie), attendees who snag an open mic spot will have the chance to tell a story of their own. Use those eight minutes wisely. Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S. Morgan St. Tuesday, May 19, 8pm. Suggested donation $10. (773)655-6769. storyclubchicago. com (Olivia Stovicek)

Secret Garden at Court Coming off an acclaimed adaptation of another popular book, the Bible, Hyde Park’s dependable Court Theatre will continue its successful season with an adaptation of the famous children’s book The Secret Garden. Like the Bible, but aimed for a younger audience, The Secret Garden is a well-loved story that features a dynamic cast of characters, a mysterious old house, and a blooming garden. The precocious protagonist is a surly little girl named Mary who moves to a new home in Yorkshire with a magical secret. Come for the childhood memories, stay for the weirdly talented child actress. Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. May 21 through June 21. Fridays, 8pm; Saturdays, 8pm; Sundays, 2:30pm and 7:30 pm. $48 general, $43.50 for seniors, $23 for children, $18 for UofC students. Ages 4+. (773)753-4472. courttheatre. org ( Jake Bittle)

The Thoughts That Once We Had Thom Andersen has spent most of his life loving, creating, and teaching the art of filmmaking—from his days as a cabbie to his position at the California Institute of the Arts—in that famed haven of the movies, Los Angeles. He resolutely refuses to call it “LA.” His landmark 2003 film essay Los Angeles Plays Itself exhibits a knowledge of film and Los Angeles history that borders on the absurd: he splices together segments from hundreds of different films in order to discuss how Hollywood has portrayed or, in large part, failed to portray Los Angeles. In doing so he incorporates questions of politics, social issues, geography, and race in a way totally unlike most film criticism. His newest work The Thoughts That Once We Had, inspired by the film writings of Gilles Deleuze, presented with humor, and aimed at avid movie fans rather than academics, promises equal degrees of illumination and entertainment. Film Studies Center, 5811 S. Ellis Ave, Cobb Hall. Saturday, May 23. 7pm. Free. (773)7028596. filmstudiescenter.uchicago.edu (Robert Sorrell)

Bert Williams, Rediscovered The earliest known feature film with an all-black cast was made, abandoned, and then rediscovered recently by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Set in the Bronx, the film follows a cast of black performers and Caribbean comedian Bert Williams as they work to increase their visibility during a time of segregation. Featuring famous performers and commentary on the times, the film reveals an interesting perspective on that period’s climate through the lens of the advent of film. The screening at the Logan Center on Friday will include musical accompaniment by Theaster Gates and the Black Monks of the Mississippi. Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Friday, May 15, 7pm. Free. (773)702-2787. arts.uchicago.edu (Lucia Ahrensdorf )

Redmoon Theater’s The Devil’s Cabaret

In Dante’s Inferno, the third circle of hell is characterized by its never-ending rain. Cold and unrelenting, it extinguishes hope and happiness. After a brief experience with this circle earlier this year on the Chicago River, Redmoon Theater is determined to take back control of hell and orchestrate the fantastical fiery spectacle it has been working to create. This spring, Redmoon presents The Devil’s Cabaret, a spectacle recognizing “the Devil’s ‘greatest accomplishments’—The Seven Deadly Sins,” housed in the Redmoon warehouse. In the middle of the room, a rotating thirty-foot-tall crane equipped with stages for performances will serve as the centerpiece. Always ambitious, Redmoon promises aerialists, puppets, and craft beer, and a “special appearance by God.” Whether you want to take advantage of the Lagunitas beer bar, or seek an experience with the Great One, the event is sure to be memorable. Redmoon Theater, 2120 S. Jefferson St. Fridays, April 10-May 16, 9pm-12am. $25.

Tickets available online. 21+. (312)850-8440. redmoon.org (Lucia Ahrensdorf )

Susan Giles: Scenic Overlook In Susan Giles’ new exhibition, “Scenic Overlook,” one can view some of the world’s tallest buildings from above. Giles’ installation consists of large wooden sculptures modeled after the four highest observation towers in the world, the Tokyo Skytree, Canton Tower, CN Tower, and Ostankino Tower, all held up horizontally by steel structures. Giles takes advantage of the two-floor gallery space to allow observers to view these famous architectural wonders from above. Giles, a professor of art at DePaul University, got her MFA from Northwestern in 2009 and is known for her large-scale installations in venues across Chicago, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Elmhurst Art Museum. Visit the Hyde Park Art Center to witness Giles’s exploration of the power of perspective, tourism, and architecture. Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S Cornell Avenue. Sunday, April 19 through Sunday, July 26. Monday-Thursday, 9am-8pm; Friday-Saturday, 9am-5pm; Sunday, noon-5pm. Free. (773)324-5520. hydeparkart.org (Clyde Schwab)

Loo Presents: We Martha Clippinger’s art is loud, colorful, and, often literally, off the wall. Her work hangs in the space between painting and sculpture, exploring the effects of color, as well as shape, in three dimensions. Fittingly, the piece that is being used as a promotional image for her new exhibit, “Loo Presents: We” at Slow gallery, is bright orange and yellow, countered by a serene blue wave pattern, the corners of the paper curling away from the wall and projecting into the space beyond it. “Loo Presents: We” is a group exhibition featuring Clippinger’s work alongside pieces from video and performance artist, painter, and musician Guy Richards Smit and Chicago-based fibers artist Allison Wade. In the words of the gallery, “It’s not a competition, but they’re all number one.” Slow, 2153 W 21st St. Saturday, April 25 through Saturday, May 16. Saturday, noon-5pm. Free. (773) 645-8803. paul-is-slow.info (Robert Sorrell)

Project 1915 In 2012, artist Jackie Kazarian executed an intensely painful, personal exhibition in a hospital. Entitled “Breast Wallpaper,” her work drew on her own experiences with breast cancer, publicizing a personal trauma and offering an empathetic hand to others dealing with the disease. This year she is working to address another kind of trauma: the 1915 Armenian Genocide in which one-and-a-half million Armenians were massacred.

One hundred years after the genocide, Kazarian, who has Armenian heritage, has created a massive mural to commemorate the event and to explore the intersections of memory and trauma, again in a deeply personal way. The comparisons to Picasso’s “Guernica” are apt, but the artist is taking on this difficult subject in her own style. The piece will premiere in Chicago at MANA before touring nationally and internationally. Mana Contemporary, 2233 S. Throop St. Through Friday, May 29. Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm; Sunday, noon-5pm. Free. (312) 850-8301 manacontemporarychicago.com (Robert Sorrell)

Old Wicked Songs First produced in 1996 by Jon Marans, Old Wicked Songs is the story of an aging Viennese music professor and his prodigal but burnt-out piano student. In a story that takes teacher and student to emotional extremes while discussing the ramifications of the Holocaust in Austria, Old Wicked Songs shines as a valuable lesson that reflects the importance of healing, music, and remembering one’s past. The play closely follows the “Dichterliebe” (A Poet’s Love), a collection of songs by Robert Schumann. The play is presented by Provision Theater, a Chicago company that broke into the scene in 2004 with an acclaimed production of Cotton Patch Gospel. Provision has since followed with productions including Smoke on the Mountain, the Boys Next Door, and Gospel. Provision Theater Company, 1001 W. Roosevelt Rd. April 29-June 7. Fridays, 8pm; Saturdays, 8pm; Sundays, 3pm. $10-$32. (312)455-0066. provisiontheater.org (Clyde Schwab)

VISUAL ARTS No Longer Art What really is art? What isn’t? Can a piece of art ever stop being art? The exhibition “No Longer Art” is a collection of “salvaged art”: pieces of work removed from museum and gallery circulation due to accidental damage and complete loss of market value, but still culturally significant and relatively intact.

Founded by the New York artist Elka Krajewska, the Salvage Art Institute (SAI) serves as a shelter for salvaged art and a stage for discussing the work’s cultural, visual, and—perhaps most importantly—fiscal value. “No Longer Art: Salvage Art Institute” is presented at the Neubauer Collegium Exhibitions in partnership with the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry with support from the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory.

The Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society, 5701 S. Woodlawn Ave. April 23 – June 26. Monday-Friday, 11:00am5:00pm. (773)702-6030. http://neubauercollegium.uchicago. edu (Alex Harrell)

Chicago High School for the Arts Senior Showcase The Class of 2015 at the Chicago High School for the Arts (ChiArts) will display their visual artwork in a Senior Showcase exhibition at Mana Contemporary Chicago. Featuring work of many disciplines including painting, drawing, graphic design, photography, sculpture, and mixed media, the Senior Showcase is the final chance for students to present the products of their high school careers. ChiArts students spend nearly 2,300 hours over the course of their four years in high school perfecting their artistic skills in studios. In addition to work from students’ visual art major of choice, work they completed in electives such as digital media and wearable sculpture will be on display.

The exhibit will be located in Mana’s 5th floor gallery and café and a public reception will be held on the final day of the exhibit. Mana Contemporary Chicago, 2233 S. Throop St. May 8 from 9am-5pm, May 11-15 by appointment, reception May 15th 6pm-9pm. Free. 312.850.0555. www.manacontemporarychicago. com (Dagny Vaughn)

Windy City Breakdown Ayana Contreras—DJ, radio show host, record collector, producer, blogger—was one of the Arts Incubator’s Artists-in-Residence during 2014-15. Her culminating exhibition, “Windy City Breakdown,” features locally-sourced records from her own personal collection, and will explore Black Chicago at the height of the Black Power movement, alongside its intersections with art and entrepreneurship. Contreras hosts and produces a weekly show on Vocalo called “Reclaimed Soul” that is all about “taking old materials (records, buildings, ideas, et al) to push us all forward.” With Contreras being the all-around sound and audio Renaissance woman that she is, her exhibit is sure to be an unusual foray into Chicago, black resistance, and history. Not to mention, it’ll have a great soundtrack. Arts Incubator, 301 E. Garfield Blvd. Through May 29. Artist talk May 19, 6pm-7:30pm.

Free. (773)702-9724. arts.uchicago.edu (Maha Ahmed)

The Ghost of Slavery in Corporate Chicago Buried deep in Section 585 of Chicago’s Municipal Code is the “Slavery Era Business/Corporate Insurance Disclosure,” which mandates that contractors with the city disclose any and all profits gained from slavery. Yet after two hundred years, several major Chicago companies have yet to disclose their profits from slavery. “The Ghost of Slavery in Corporate Chicago” spotlights the skeletons in these companies’ closets. In an exhibition of photographs and documents regarding the businesses’ hidden histories, images of corporate success and human suffering collide. The exhibit is the first in a larger series at Pilsen’s URI-EICHEN Gallery, entitled “40 Acres and a Mule: A Series of Visual Arts Shows and Discussions about Reparations for Slavery,” which will run until September. URI-EICHEN Gallery, 2101 S. Halsted St. Through June 5, by appointment.

(312)852-7717. Uri-eichen.com (Hafsa Razi)

CALENDAR Cosmosis Though most visibly a muse for artistic creation in the last few years with feature films and literature, outer space has mystified and inspired humanity for centuries. In the new exhibit at the Hyde Park Art Center, artists attempt to visually represent the deeper resonances of the cosmos through its intersection with different fields such as philosophy, anthropology, and physics.

The exhibition examines the significance of space travel to modern culture as well as the role Chicago-based artists have had in interpreting this significance. This event promises to be full of thought-provoking discussion and haunting images of another world. Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. Through August 23. Monday-Thursday, 9am-8pm; Friday-Saturday, 9am-5pm;Sunday, noon-5pm. Free. (773)324-5520. hydeparkart.org (Lucia Ahrensdorf)

LÁLDISH Much of Noelle Garcia’s work is mired in questions of family, identity, and the Native American experience. Working with paint as well as fiber media including bead work, soft sculpture, and basketry, Chicago-based Garcia received her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Painting & Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her show, LÁLDISH, is set to open at Ordinary Projects, where Garcia is currently a resident artist. Ordinary Projects, 2233 S. Throop St. Saturday, May 9, 6pm-9pm. Free. ordinaryprojects.org (Clyde Schwab)

.de.ma.rc.at.ed.

The main idea of this month-long showing in a new Hyde Park gallery is this: art does not exist in a vacuum, and neither does anything else. The work of Alberto Aguilar, presented at the 4th Ward Project Space with support from the UofC’s Arts + Public Life Initiative, explores the way different boundaries— art and artist, home and world, owner and object—work, both in themselves and in relationship to one another. This particular show, titled “.de.ma.rc.at.ed.,” decontextualizes functional household objects and presents them as “monuments” for the viewer to interpret. 4th Ward Project Space, 5338 S. Kimbark Ave. Enter on 54th St. Opening reception Sunday May 3, 4pm-7pm.

Through May 31, 1pm-5pm on Saturdays and Sundays. (773)2032991. 4wps.org ( Jake Bittle)

Gabriel Sierra Swing by the Renaissance Society right after breakfast to see Gabriel Sierra’s “Monday Impressions” at ten in the morning.

Visit right before your midday nap around two to experience “In the Meantime, (This Place Will Be Empty after 5:00 pm),” or maybe take in “Few Will Leave Their Place to Come Here for Some Minutes” around four, right before the gallery closes.

The title of the exhibit changes each hour, but the work of the architecturally-trained Colombian artist will be consistently compelling. An interactive exploration of the ways in which the human body relates to and experiences temporal and spatial environments, Sierra’s installation consists of a series of constructions made with natural materials that have been isolated, processed, and domesticated. The exhibit emphasizes the presence and experience of the visitor, begging to be walked over, stood in, and experienced firsthand, whatever the time of day. The Renaissance Society, 5811 S. Ellis Ave. May 3-June 28, Tuesday-Friday, 10am-5pm; Saturday-Sunday 12pm-5pm. Free.

(773)702-8670. www.renaissancesociety.org (Lewis Page)

Mirrored Infinity Inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim,” visual artist John Whitlock inquires into existentialism, spirituality, and reproduction through black and white collages that are scanned and crafted into mixed media compositions. These are accompanied by a video feed of evolving geometric patterns on an infinite loop. The work uses simple shapes to create elaborate and semi-religious iconography, gold—with its connotations of preciousness and implication of age—and geometric distortions. Whitlock works primarily in collage and assemblage and is influenced by the surplus of stimuli in our culture and society, particularly in popular graphic images. Join

Whitlock at the Chicago Urban Art Society’s debut in its new McKinley Park space in a show “about finding yourself in the search for another.” Chicago Urban Art Society, 3636 S. Iron St. Friday, May 1, 6:30pm-11:30pm through Saturday, June 27. Free.

(773)951-8101. chicagourbanartsociety.com (Clyde Schwab)

ARC 40th Anniversary Exhibit A 40th Anniversary show in honor of ARC, one of the oldest female-run art galleries and exhibition spaces in the country, will begin this Friday at the Beverly Arts Center. The show features over 120 current and former artists from the co-operative gallery in Chicago. Founded in 1973, ARC provides exhibition opportunities for emerging artists based on “excellence of artwork” and without discrimination regarding gender, race, class, and other factors. While ARC is an internationally recognized exhibition space, it also serves as an educational foundation, providing opportunities for emerging artists. Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St. Friday, May 31, 7pm-9pm through Friday, May 1. (773)445-3838. beverlyartcenter.org (Clyde Schwab)

Imaginary Landscapes

Returning to a space of your past is the best way to wipe away the rose-colored nostalgia tint from your glasses. Through Imaginary Landscapes, Mana Contemporary presents an exploration of the relationship between space, time, and memory.

Four Midwest-based artists delve into the uncertain space at the nexus of the three, and the result is a collection of sculptures and images gathered by Chicago-based curator Allison Glenn.

Lisa Alvarado’s work features elements of shamanism as she critiques cultural appropriation and assimilation; Assaf Evron toes the line between photography and sculpture; deconstructing the mundane, Robert Burnier explores failed utopia; and, last but not least, Caroline Kent harnesses narrative and storytelling to ruminate on what it means to be an outsider in another country. Delve into the uncertainty that spans space and time. Mana Contemporary, 2233 S. Throop St., 4th floor. April 4-May 31. Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm. Opening reception April 4, 6pm-9pm. (312)850-0555. Free. manacontemporarychicago.com (Kristin Lin)

Nature’s Matrix Like many of their fellow artists, Charles Heppner and Diane Jaderberg have turned to nature for inspiration. Instead of capturing the astonishing might of an ocean, or the tranquility of a peaceful sylvan landscape, they channel elements from nature and turn them into visual motifs, repeating and abstracting them to create pieces which are not just strange but nearly unrecognizable. Also important for their work and their new installation is the interaction between technology and nature, which is mirrored in Heppner’s use of digital media and computer software to create prints. Their joint exhibition, “Nature’s Matrix,” is taking place at the Hyde Park Art Center, where the two have been studying and creating since the mid2000s. Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. April 5-July 5.

Opening reception Sunday, April 19, 3pm-5pm. (773)324-5520. hydeparkart.org (Robert Sorrell)

Snuff The word “snuff ” conjures up different things for different people, whether it be a video of murder, the 1976 splatter film, or for those of us still into the nineteenth century, fine-ground tobacco. But next weekend, Slow is taking on the heavy topic in an art show featuring Tony Balko, Todd Chilton, Jeffery Grauel, and Diego Leclery. Slow, an independent exhibition venue, features contemporary art that is “introspective and vulnerable (read slightly nerdy),” demands exploration, and is brutally frank and witty. From Balko’s flashing-color nostalgia to Chilton’s vibrant pattern painting, from Grauel’s seemingly barren work to the over-my-head work of Leclery, if you want a take on snuff, some excellent art, or a chance at free booze, visit Slow next weekend. Slow, 2153 W. 21st St. Opening reception Friday, April 25, 6pm-9pm. Through May 16, Saturdays 12-5pm.

Free. (773)645-8803. paul-is-slow.info (Clyde Schwab)

MAY 13, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19

Chicago May 14–22 2015 isra.li/jazzfest Presented of Israel to #ISRAELIJAZZFEST Maurie B. TUESDAY, MAY 19 Lazer Lloyd House of Blues 329 N Dearborn, Chicago

THURSDAY, THURSDAY, MAY MAY 14 14 Tammy TammyScheffer’s Scheffer’s Morning MorningBound Bound Constellation Constellation 3111 3111NNWestern, Western,Chicago Chicago

Three shows: 8:00 p.m., 9:45 p.m., 11:15 p.m. • $10

7:00 7:00p.m. p.m.••$15 $15

FRIDAY, FRIDAY, MAY MAY 15 15 && SATURDAY, SATURDAY, MAY MAY 16 16 Omer OmerAvital AvitalQuintet Quintet Green GreenMill MillJazz JazzClub Club 4802 4802NNBroadway, Broadway,Chicago Chicago

WEDNESDAY, MAY 20 Oran Etkin Trio Chicago Cultural Center Preston Bradley Hall 78 E Washington, Chicago

9:00 9:00p.m. p.m.Fri., Fri.,8:00 8:00p.m. p.m.Sat. Sat. $15 $15tickets ticketsatatthe thedoor door

SOUTH SIDE SHOWS SUNDAY, MAY 17 SUNDAY, MAY 17 Mika Hary Quartet Mika Star HaryChurch Quartet Bright Bright Star Church 735 E 44th, Chicago 735 p.m.

E 44th, Chicago 4:00 • Free 4:00 p.m. • Free

MONDAY, MONDAY,MAY MAY18 18 MONDAY, MAY 18 Mika Hary Quartet Mika Hary Quartet Mika Hary Quartet The ThePromontory Promontory TheSouth PromontoryPark Ave West, Chicago 5311 5311 SouthLake Lake Park Ave West, Chicago 5311 South Lake Park Ave West, Chicago 8:00 p.m.

• $15

6:30 p.m. • Free

THURSDAY, MAY 21 THURSDAY, MAY 21 Chicago Children’s Choir Chicago with OranChildren’s Etkin TrioChoir with Oran Etkin Trioat Millennium Park Jay Pritzker Pavilion Jay Pavilion at Millennium Park 201 EPritzker Randolph, Chicago 201 Randolph, 6:30Ep.m.

• Free Chicago

FRIDAY, MAY 22 CLOSING NIGHT IN CHICAGO!

Avishai Cohen’s TRIVENI Old Town School of Folk Music 4544 N Lincoln, Chicago 8:00 p.m. • $28 CLOSING NIGHT IN EVANSTON!

Offlines featuring Yinon Muallem and Guy Mintus with Donovan Mixon Skylight at Heartwood Center 1818 Dempster, Evanston 7:00 p.m. • $15, kids free

6:30 p.m. • Free

Presented by the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest and the Lillian Maurie B. Lipsey Fund of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago

8:00 p.m. • $15 8:00 p.m. • $15

MONDAY, MAY 18

MONDAY, MAY 18

SPONSORS

VENUES ! !""#$%&'' $ ()**$+',-

#IsraeliJazzFest