January 20, 2016 by South Side Weekly

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SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is an independent nonprofit newsprint magazine written for and about neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago. We publish indepth coverage of the arts and issues of public interest alongside oral histories, poetry, fiction, interviews, and artwork from local photographers and illustrators. The South Side Weekly is 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 Editor Christian Belanger Education Editor Mari Cohen Music Editor Maha Ahmed Stage & Screen Julia Aizuss Editor Visual Arts Editor Emeline Posner Contributing Editors Lucia Ahrensdorf, Will Cabaniss, Sarah Claypoole, Eleonora Edreva, Lewis Page, Hafsa Razi, Sammie Spector Social Media Editors Austin Brown, Emily Lipstein, Sam Stecklow Web Editor Andrew Koski Visuals Editor Ellie Mejia Deputy Visuals Editors Ellen Hao, Thumy Phan Layout Editor Baci Weiler Senior Writer: Stephen Urchick Staff Writers: Olivia Adams, Sara Cohen, Christopher Good, Emiliano Burr di Mauro, Michal Kranz, Zoe Makoul, Sonia Schlesinger, Darren Wan Staff Photographers: Juliet Eldred, Finn Jubak, Alexander Pizzirani, Julie Wu Staff Illustrators: Javier Suarez, Addie Barron, Jean Cochrane, Lexi Drexelius, Wei Yi Ow, Amber Sollenberger, Teddy Watler, Julie Wu, Zelda Galewsky, Seonhyung Kim Editorial Interns

Gozie Nwachukwu, Kezie Nwachukwu, Bilal Othman

Webmaster Publisher

Sofia Wyetzner 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 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 For advertising inquiries, contact: (773) 234-5388 or advertising@southsideweekly Read our stories online at southsideweekly.com

Cover photo by Nate Earnest.

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 Correction A review of Juice's Bar'd Up mixtape in the January 6 issue of the Weekly contained a number of errors. Juice currently lives and works in Chicago, not California. The mixtape contains eight songs, not the seven available for streaming on Bandcamp. Juice defeated Eminem in a rap battle but did not defeat Supernatural. The song "13," while it does concern a murderous teenager, also concerns the negative effects of bullying. Finally, the review neglected to mention that Bar'd Up is part of a fundraiser meant to help Juice and his wife Bella pay legal fees they incurred when they were pulled over by police in Nebraska and had their savings confiscated through the controversial "civil forfeiture" program. The original review did not accurately reflect the context and content of Bar'd Up.We regret the errors and have updated the review online. Prayers for Anita Alvarez Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez said on Monday that there is no need for a special prosecutor to handle police shooting cases. Alvarez’s comments were a response to a question posed at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day forum on community justice at the Community Renewal Society's Faith in Action Assembly. All three candidates for State’s Attorney were at the forum and responded to the special prosecutor question—Donna More proposed the creation of a section within the State’s Attorney’s office exclusively devoted to police prosecutions, while Kim Foxx said she would want a special prosecutor to handle those cases. Alvarez argued that the State’s Attorney is legally

only allowed to hand off a case to a special prosecutor in the case of a “legal conflict,” one which Alvarez does not see in police shooting cases. Foxx on the other hand contended that there is a conflict of interest, arguing that the State’s Attorney’s office depends on the police department for cases, which creates an “inherent intimacy.” In reaction to Alvarez’s answer, the gathering of congregants from Chicago-area churches stood and prayed together that God help Alvarez “see the light.” Shootings Up in 2016 Ten days, 110 shootings: from January 1 to January 10, 110 people have been have been shot in Chicago. According to DNAinfo, that’s up two and a half times since last year, when forty-four people had been shot by this time. And after a year like 2015, when gun violence became a national issue and President Obama made gun safety a central policy goal, a statistic of that scale is sure to intensify debate on both sides. John Escalante, Interim Police Superintendent following Garry McCarthy’s firing in early December, explained the spike in crime as originating in gang feuds, although through a new medium: Twitter and Facebook posts “taunting and challenging” rival gangs. “It’s the modern way of gang graffiti,” he said. Escalante is now tasked with the unenviable job of simultaneously countering a rapidly expanding inter-gang violence problem and working to restore confidence in the department, after damage done to its reputation by the Laquan McDonald video and subsequent protests.

IN THIS ISSUE how to be heard

"You deserve their ears, they deserve you." kristin lin...4 no defeat at the dojo

“We try to keep everything in house." jon poilpre...5

paperback writer

from the presses, for the people

"I think I’d rather write a great poem." sarah claypoole...8

“This was a story that needed to be told.” sara cohen...12

paradigm shift

At first, he didn’t take the job seriously—he assumed that people would see him as “just a gangbanger.” ari feldman...10

revival on

55th

street

“We are sitting right on the corner where the art form [of improv comedy] was invented.” ariella carmell...13

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STAGE & SCREEN

How to Be Heard

High school spoken word community gathers at the South Side Slam BY KRISTIN LIN

n a Tuesday afternoon, Julian Johnson sat in a classroom in TEAM Englewood Community Academy with the rest of his slam poetry team. Although he’s a junior at TEAM Englewood, Johnson is new to the team. He had seen upperclassmen perform spoken word and written some poetry here and there, but joining the team was a big step. Melissa Hughes, the coach of TEAM Englewood’s team, noted this as she confirmed his plans to attend South Side Slam, an annual competition for high school poets on the South Side. “I know you are dying to perform,” Hughes said to Johnson. “I cannot wait to see you perform.” The following Saturday, Johnson joined students from twelve high schools across the South Side at TEAM Englewood Academy for the South Side Slam. The sixth annual Slam was an opportunity for teen poets to share their work with a live audience in anticipation of Louder Than A Bomb (LTAB), the annual Chicago-wide poetry competition for high school students. Hughes, an English teacher at TEAM Englewood, and Molly Myers, who teaches at Lindblom Math and Science Academy, co-organized the event. Young Chicago Authors, the spoken word nonprofit that hosts LTAB, provided staff and connected new coaches to Hughes and Myers. Hughes intended the South Side Slam to be a place where students could share their stories, and where the audience could listen and learn. The poems covered a variety of

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topics—from gentrification to cultural appropriation to experiences with abuse. Marquis “Picasso” Eason, a junior at Percy L. Julian High School, had to pause for a moment while performing a piece on his experiences with bullying. In response, the audience snapped and clapped in encouragement. “I was choking up,” Eason said later. “I took a pause, took a breath, and continued on.” Eason is the captain of Julian’s poetry team. He was first drawn to poetry when he saw a performance on TV at three years old. Eason was shy when he joined the team as a freshman, but with his coach’s encouragement he eventually opened up. He said he chose the stage name Picasso because his coach, noting Eason’s talent for painting, told him he was an imagery poet. “Every time I come to South Side Slam, I hear the poetry, and I am just like, wow,” said Eason, who represented his team in the final round. “It’s like that first time and I’m back at that TV screen, the first time hearing it, the first time I’m listening to it.” Patricia Frazier, the captain of the poetry team from Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy, performed a group piece about cultural appropriation, as well as an individual piece about how gentrification has impacted her life. Frazier grew up in the Ida B. Wells Homes in Bronzeville before they were demolished and still returns to the neighborhood to visit her grandmother. “Every time I go over there, there’s a big plain where all the buildings used to be,” she said. “And there’s police cameras…There are

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KRISTIN LIN

Mariah "Prophecy" Monroe, 16, performs her poem, "The Creation of Poetry" in the final round of the South Side Slam. She is part of Enough Said, the winning team from Kenwood Academy High School. people here who don’t know the history, who don’t know what ground they’re walking on.” “I cry in a lot of my pieces,” said Frazier. “I try not to, but I think the importance is that you’re honest in all of your stories and you give yourself to the audience, because that’s what the audience deserves. You deserve their ears, they deserve you.” As the South Side Slam came to a close, all twelve teams gathered in the TEAM Englewood auditorium to watch the final round. The three teams still in competition gathered at the auditorium floor for the final score tally. Third place went to Julian High School, second place to Merrillville High School (from Merrillville, Indiana), and first place to Kenwood Academy. “This is a fair representation of what I think Chicago youth are really all about,” said Timothy Miller, the coach of Kenwood

Academy’s team. “[So often] we’re in the negative press, but when you sit and you look at what can happen when you are allowed to express yourself and you are given a medium on which to do that, the things that can come out of it are so phenomenal.” Miller says his team will be celebrating a little, but not for long. “Back to work, really,” said Miller. “We got to prep for LTAB.” As for Johnson, he said his debut with TEAM Englewood’s team was more than encouraging. “I was nervous,” he said. “I actually got up there and when I got up there it was like, ‘Okay, you’re just going to do this; just get it out of the way.’ And as I began the poem, I felt I was being listened to. I’m going to do this again; I need to do this again…I can’t wait to go home so I can start writing.”

MUSIC

No Defeat at the Dojo Inside Pilsen's new underground gallery and music venue BY JON POILPRE

n a corner of the Dojo’s basement, a guitar leans propped up next to a snow shovel and broom, as if it’s a household tool. In another room, a medium-sized VHS collection sits in a wood shelf underneath a series of colorful paintings that line the wall. The wood-paneled basement bar looks like a ruin from a '70s man cave, but supports a mixing board and mic equipment. These artifacts lie at the intersection of art and home and capture the lifestyle of Pilsen-based artists Mykele Deville, Daniel Kyri Madison, and Alex Palma. The three are residents of the Dojo, an underground performance venue and gallery in southwest Pilsen. The group moved into their building complex in the summer of 2015. Having known each other through their involvement in Chicago’s DIY (“Do It Yourself ”) music scene over the past five years, the artists wanted to create their own venue and began looking for a location. The Dojo, located in Pilsen, now hosts a few events a month, some of which can feature as many as thirty artists and musicians in one night. The physical spaces in the Dojo hint at the dual nature of the venue: the compartmentalized space contains a living-roomslash-gallery, a bedroom-slash-installation-space, a backyard-slash-theatre, and a basement-slash-concert stage. At the helm of this space sit the members of the Dojo board, who Kyri says “keep things running.” The board is currently made up of Deville, Kyri, and locals Selena Boyer, Samantha Hollis, Palma, and Emily Woods. They accept applications from local artists and community members interested in curating shows, and also serve as liaisons between the curators of the Dojo and the artists they host. The board members all serve unique roles for different shows, though Kyri notes they’ve all been known to pull eight-hour shifts to help plan and set up events. Deville,

NATE EARNEST

for example, serves as the social facilitator of the Dojo, while Palma is responsible for tech. The Dojo also has a staff of “Dependable Homies” and a plethora of other volunteers.

eville claims that the reason the Dojo has been successful so far is that the space expects accountability from its artists. “It’s not any less professional than those pop-ups on 18th [Street],” he says. The shows take weeks of preparation and

are meticulously organized, both thematically and spatially. “We try to keep everything in house. People can’t just come in and bring their band and six other bands on the tickets.” The shows themselves are incredibly diverse; past events have featured visual arts, zines, live painting, installations, theater, comedy, poetry, and music. “We want to avoid some weird hierarchy,” says Deville, a nod to how many DIY spaces in the city prioritize music over other visual or performance arts.

At first impression, The Dojo exudes far more of a party atmosphere than the feel of a gallery; the rooms can get full of so many people that some of the artwork is obscured. At the last major Dojo event, an all-female-produced art event called “FEMI-NICE” on January 16, the curators had to squeeze a few large paintings into a small, poorly-lit room at the back of the house. But local artists seem to appreciate this style of display. Muhammad Naqee, a painter and jewelry artist who was displaying a

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“We’re about positivity, we’re about safe space, while [in] other places it’s more about coming in and having a good time, and then leaving.”

NATE EARNEST

handful of his own works, believes the Dojo’s unique curation style creates an atmosphere superior to that of a traditional gallery. At the latter, “you have the older, rich white crowd,” Naqee says, “and they wanna come out for the scene and to be seen, as opposed to appreciating it, actually interacting with people, and just enjoying what's happening.” The more casual and social atmosphere of the Dojo events encourages participation by artists and art appreciators as opposed to art collectors. The art sits on the walls, behind a sea of people, but all the spectators are people who want to, and will, seek out engagement with the pieces and their makers. In the back room of “FEMI-NICE,” I stood and looked at a painting of an apple and a knife against a black background. A man made eye contact with me from across the room, and in a second appeared next to me. He shared some commentary on the painting, quickly assessed and compared the

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clothes of everyone in the room, and walked away. Deville believes the Dojo’s style of “hyper attention” provides unique opportunities for artist promotion, but the Dojo’s high level of organization and preparedness can cause disagreements with artists accustomed to other venues or spaces. “Sometimes the spirit of doing things in a specific way breeds this hyper attention and organization that a lot of DIY venues don’t want to do or believe is necessary,” says Deville, “because that’s not ‘the spirit of DIY.’” He cited Presley Joy Paget, a painter and maker of wearable art, as a golden example of a Dojo success story. Paget arrived days early to work with the curators. She mounted her work in a way that complemented crowd flow, painted live during the events, and stuck around during the show, connecting with other artists and interested

buyers. “Mykele claimed a jacket straight away,” she said. “I then gave a pair of painted pants to Monet [a Dojo-affiliated artist], and then another to one of the bands and suddenly my art was floating through the space. This night started my engine for wearable art.” Though Dojo curators do not charge or profit off the artists’ displays, they expect them to be prepared and professional. “[Paget] set a precedent for artists,” said Deville. “We won’t take anything less.”

n addition to the respect and positivity that defines the Dojo’s curatorial relationships, Deville says the Dojo also aims to create a positive and healthy space in Chicago’s artistic community as well. “There is no defeat in this dojo” is a moniker plastered around the walls of the building and on its Facebook page, capturing the zero-tolerance policy the Dojo has for all dis-

MUSIC

crimination. A few inches from the door, a handwritten cardboard sign hangs that lists rules for the Dojo event: the first is that it’s a designated safe space. Rules two and three mandate respect for the artists’ work and for the residents of the building. During “FEMI-NICE,” these rules were on display. A few people in the basement audience started organizing the shorter spectators in the front, and the taller in the back. In these moments, the dancing and moshing typical of DIY basement shows would have felt out of place, but head bobbing and smiles were everywhere. People treated the space delicately: the floors weren’t sticky at the end of the night, and there was none of the typical “DIY grime” either. “We’re about positivity, we’re about safe space, while [in] other places it’s more about coming in and having a good time, and then leaving,” Deville says. “Versus someone

opening up their basement, we open up our whole house.” At the major events themselves, artists seem to benefit and contribute to the Dojo’s signature atmosphere almost more than concertgoers: wandering about the space during FEMI-NICE, I had conversations with multiple artists about their own work and others’, while on the other hand, people who came for the music seemed more reserved. Still, while walking through the crowd I overheard a fan of the opening band exclaim, “This basement is filled with love.” The creation of the Dojo, to a certain extent, was a response to the insularity Deville and Kyri experienced at other DIY venues throughout Chicago. Although niche communities are at the core of these spaces, the Dojo thought DIY could be more. “In other DIY spaces, it’s like: my friend has a band that wants to play, and I know a couple other cool bands that I like

and give them a space to play,” says Deville. “That system is great because it breeds loyalty, but it doesn’t do anything to expand the scene, make it more diverse and multicultural, or break down the walls of gender.” Through its model of working through a diverse number of outside curators, the Dojo is able to fight insularity and draw from multiple crowds for each event. “We try and mix up the bill, so you’ll have a hiphop artist with a rock artist with a country artist, whatever you can think of,” Deville says. “Since the Dojo runs different shows each time, people can respond like ‘what is this, I wanted the hip-hop,’” he continues. “There’s always going to be distortion between these walls, but we are giving people options to see something new. Even if you don’t like experiencing new things, you’ll find the sector of the Dojo that you like and come to that.”

NATE EARNEST

s the Dojo continues to grow, it’s likely that many of its beliefs about community will be tested. “In its DNA, [the Dojo] feels a little more expansive than a typical DIY space,” Deville says, but will still have to maintain the delicate balances that other DIY-style venues do. The venue takes the DIY model and slightly systematizes it, but with benefits: it intends to create a safer, more positive, and more productive experience for artists and others. The venue is already hosting the next DIY town hall meeting, a gathering of representatives from venues across the city. If it continues to toe the line between being a professional institution and being an artistic community, it has the potential to make waves in Chicago, and to expand what curation can do.

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Paperback Writer

Beware of Napkins, Poems and Illustrations Inspired by the Beatles BY SARAH CLAYPOOLE

ack Murphy is a Bridgeport-based writer and teacher, currently teaching at Truman Middle College in Uptown. He and illustrator Melanie Jeanne Plank recently released Beware of Napkins, a book of Beatles-inspired illustrations and poems. It is dedicated to Sister Mary, the administrator at the now-closed St. Gregory High School in West Edgewater, where he taught a class on the Beatles. A previous book of his, My Apartment in Chicago, shared these poems’ creativity of form and love of pop culture. In addition to poems and illustrations, Beware of Napkins, features a series of fictional letters between a Beatles-loving father and daughter that serve as a narrative thread grounding poems that explore legacy, family, and the connective powers of music. Murphy’s work has appeared in both of the Weekly’s Lit Issues. How does Beware of Napkins speak to readers who aren’t Beatles super-fans? I didn’t want to come off as a fanboy—every page like, wow, isn’t this song so good? Remember that lyric? It’s more human than that. Writing a collection about one band acknowledges that the one band is super great and really exceptional, but I tried to drain that out a little bit. One poem is about Mal [Evans], their roadie. You see these videos, and the Beatles are just chilling, and in the background, you see Mal, carrying in amplifiers and all that. There are people behind them that are making this work too. The music is at the heart of it, but the focus is really on everyone around the music, that the music has brought together: the people who are listening to it, the people in the background. That’s what I was most interested in. What drives you to write about pop culture? I try to write about the most important thing to me at any given time, and the Beatles were this really important thing to me, not just because I love their music but because I taught a class about the Beatles in

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my old school, and my old school got shut down. Then I no longer had this place to connect with students over music, so I felt this gap there. Whenever I had a Beatles thought that I maybe would have talked about in class, I wrote poems about it. In some ways, the poems treat the Beatles as a piece of pop culture, and in other ways, the Beatles are such a personal part of so many people’s lives and a huge part of my life: things I talk about in class I feel an extra-special connection to. Does being a writer affect how you teach? Definitely. I teach American literature, I teach writing, and that’s probably what I’m best at. I talk to them like a writer—not as a teacher teaching writer—I feel like I’m a writer who is teaching. Teaching writing informs what I write because I’m constantly thinking about it, responding to students asking questions, to what students are doing. You might have a feeling as a writer, but as a teacher, you have to be able to articulate it. What was the relationship between the poems and the letters in Beware of Napkins?

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The letters were a really great way [to add content]—I wanted more pieces, and those are easy to do, I could write fifty of those. It’s an easy way to write my fandom into my character’s mouth. The dad is saying, “I can’t believe how fast their hair grows,” and that’s something I used to think. You can’t write a poem about that detail but it fits into that narrative, that story—the dad would have noticed that. The letters were really useful to give the book this narrative all the way through. I didn’t want it to be just about the four Beatles, that I thought they were these gods, because in that sense they’re not that important. It’s really about this dad and this daughter, and they’re using the Beatles as a way to connect.

On Liverpool Losing th Liverpool, 1978

It’s a sort of death when what belongs to you alo becomes something owned by u Now I see that the Last Supper’s bur will never belong to Vatican C that you can be young and grea once, that there are things only 17 know. I love you still, though I neither clip your arti nor record your shows. I no longer defend you to my f he’s finally come around.

When I play Abbey Road I lower the volume to nothin I look beyond and through the remember you as you were imagine you’re walking hom

You’ve written flash fiction in the past. Why poetry for this project? If I have an idea, I don’t care ultimately if it turns out to be a short story or poetry. I don’t privilege one over the other, but I think that writing a poem—you know what, maybe I don’t think that. I think I’d rather write a great poem. There’s something extra-special about a poem, there’s something more mysterious about it. There’s something lurking underneath it, much more so than in other pieces. When you’re writing in longer form, you have more of a tendency to just say it. With a poem, you have less space, less time, so you have to hide more. It’s more shadowed. Jack Murphy and Melanie Jeanne Plank, Beware of Napkins. Self-published. Available at jackmurphychicago.com. 52 pages. $15

POEMS BY JACK MURPHY ILLUSTRATIONS BY MELANIE JEANN

he Beatles 8

one us all. rning spirit City, at only year olds

icles

father

d, ng. cover, e, me.

LIT

John & Paul

Consider George

They must have each remembered still when they’d been in love. Even after becoming lost in a series of well-worn anecdotes, there must have been nights when their time together felt real again, nights when each allowed the feeling to return.

My father would say: Learn from the bigger kids. Beat them. Copy their haircut, then keep growing. You’ll always be three years younger. Use them.

In the dark, all that’s left are dingy dressing rooms, motel twin beds, a van with some feet of space between guitars and amps. What ecstasy—what relief to find a twin and opposite in the house down the street, on the bus on the way to school, who recognizes his same sadness in you, and you in him; who possesses what you possess: a talent to equal and challenge, a spirit you can share, a voice with the perfect grooves and slits to complement your own. Before the colors of youth are drained, the country of childhood abandoned, what love can be shared by teen-aged boys who both love rock n roll. What drama. What absolute neediness and release.

NE PLANK

JANUARY 20, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

Paradigm Shift How Darius Jones became a farmer BY ARI FELDMAN Neighbors is the Weekly’s new series that profiles ordinary people with extraordinary stories to tell. Think we should profile someone you know? Send your pitches to editor@southsideweekly.com.

hen Darius Jones tells the story of his first time working in a garden, his eyes light up. Four neatly tilled rows stretched out over the length of the two-acre urban farm he was working on, he says, each a hundred feet long. The instructions were straightforward: Plant one head of lettuce every foot. Make a hole, put the lettuce in the hole, close the hole back up. Don’t forget to gently loosen up the block of soil so that the roots can expand. He planted four hundred heads of iceberg lettuce that day. It was meditative work for an eighteen-year-old, remembers Jones, now twenty-four. “I just put the lettuce in the ground and thought about life,” he said on a sunny Wednesday last October, standing next to a plot on Legends Farm at the intersection of 45th and Federal Streets in Bronzeville. Windy City Harvest, the Chicago Botanic Garden’s urban agriculture initiative, operates the two-acre farm in cooperation with the two development firms.It also runs an on-site incubator for budding urban farmers to help get their businesses of the ground. Here Jones managed a plot for two years, growing leafy greens to sell at the Pilsen Community Market through his business, Urban Aggies, new at the time. Since last winter, however, he has been in charge of the rooftop garden at McCormick Place, another Windy City location, helping to harvest over four tons of vegetables for use in the convention center’s restaurants. But for Jones, gardening is much more than a livelihood—it represents his freedom. That’s because the two-acre lot where Jones first learned how to farm was in the Cook County Jail, set behind a double chain-link fence topped with razor wire. 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

“I

got sent to jail for aggravated vehicular hijacking, by the graces of the universe,” Jones likes to say. He was arrested in early 2009, when he was seventeen. At that point, he recalls, he could have been booked for doing much worse. He grew up in East Garfield Park, moving often between relatives’ homes. He was small for his age, picked on by the kids who lived around him. When he moved in with his aunt in a different part of the neighborhood, he took the opportunity to completely change his persona—to shift his paradigm. Jones says he learned about the concept of the paradigm shift a year ago, when he read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey’s self-help mega-phenomenon. To shift your paradigm, Covey writes, is to change a fundamental character trait to alter how the world sees you—and how you see yourself. Jones says he’s undergone two paradigm shifts; moving in with his aunt was his first. In this new environment, Jones says, “to sink was to be a good kid and go to school”— to “swim” was to adopt a whole new attitude. He began to hang out with the kids who used to pick on him. They played basketball and went to school, but they also biked around the neighborhood with BB guns, robbing local dealers as they went. In eighth grade he was expelled from his charter school for shooting another student in the eye with a BB gun. He was arrested and sent to juvenile detention. His relationships with family members started to deteriorate after that. “My dad essentially washed his hands of me,” he says. “He just watched, like, ‘There’s nothing I can do, he won’t listen.’” Jones fell in with a gang and learned how to steal cars, which he would hotwire and leave in abandoned lots. He held up local drug dealers at gunpoint, only to give the drugs to his friends. The gang members nicknamed him Swindle, and he earned a place in

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ELLEN HAO

“I got sent to jail for aggravated vehicular hijacking, by the graces of the universe.”

NEIGHBORS their inner circle. Jones was ultimately arrested, however, not for illegally owning multiple guns or for his role in moving drugs, but for borrowing a customer’s car to make a drug deal and not giving it back. (As Jones heard it, the guy’s wife realized that the car wasn’t coming back, and called the police. Jones was arrested soon after.) “Thank God I went to jail for that!” he says. “Saved my life. Just saved my life.” In jail, Jones remained affiliated with his gang, and spent time in solitary confinement for those connections. But when Jones wasn’t in solitary confinement he spent most of his time reading, preferring long series like Harry Potter and Alex Cross novels. Fourteen months into his sentence Jones received a new public defender, who brought him back to court and convinced a judge to lessen Jones’s sentence, pending his completion of the Vocational Rehabilitation Impact Center program. Also known as Boot Camp, the program is a rigorous, military-style program aimed at teaching structure, discipline, and job skills to nonviolent offenders. After a few weeks, Jones was placed on the gardening shift. He couldn’t have been more excited: over the course of his year-anda-half in prison, he had been outside exactly twice.

ones says his second paradigm shift came when he interned at the Windy City stand in the Pilsen Community Market. At first, he didn’t take the job seriously—he assumed that people would see him as “just a gangbanger.” After finishing Boot Camp in July 2010, he was released on probation and joined the Windy City job training program, sleeping through his classes by day and hanging out with his friends in Garfield Park at night. One day, a woman came up to the stand and asked Jones about the bitter melon they were selling. He didn’t know what she was talking about. “We probably wouldn’t have even talked if it wasn’t for the bitter melon,” he said. “She just saw the bitter melon we had out there and was like, ‘I love bitter melon!’ And then we just talked for an hour about gardening.” Jones started opening up more and talking with the people who bought the produce he was selling. “I decided to open myself up to influence again,” he said. “To learn more, to take in more about other cultures.” Over the next two seasons, he helped

as Windy City quadrupled their sales at the market. The program was growing, adding new sites, and, by 2013, moving over 30,000 pounds of produce each year. The year before, Windy City had received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to support six beginning farmers through incubator programs over the course of three years. Jones was picked to be one of the first participants. “That day I found out, I just cried so hard,” he said. “I just balled up on the floor in the kitchen. It felt so good.” “My mother told me,” he added after a pause, “when I was seventeen years old, ‘I love you, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that you might be dead in the next couple of years.’ To have this opportunity now—it was just like, ‘Oh my god!’” At twenty years old, Jones began receiving attention from local media. WGN reported on Urban Aggies, his budding business, and WBEZ named him one of their “EcoHeroes” of 2013. At the end of the 2014 season, Jones was asked to manage Windy City’s rooftop garden at McCormick Place, and in early 2015 he was hired to run Garfield Produce, a hydroponics farm housed in a warehouse across the street from George Westinghouse College Prep. He’s currently the general manager, but will be making the transition to CEO early this summer. “It will be pretty cool,” Jones said, “to be called ‘CEO.’” Jones and his growing assistant produce about thirty pounds of greens each week to send off to restaurants like the Haywood Tavern, The Berghoff, and Hyde Park’s Yusho and A10. Giving a tour of the warehouse recently, he marveled at his life’s trajectory. “After a while I started going to the neighborhood five days a week, instead of seven, and then two times a week, then once a week, then every two weeks, to every three weeks,” he says. “Now I go, like, every four months. Just enough to still keep in touch. And those guys let me live my life. That’s what I love about them. They would be like, ‘We see what you’re doing. Keep it up, man. We’re happy for you.’” He laughed. “And now they’re like, ‘Damn! Dude’s a business owner!” “Sometimes I just think about my life,” Jones said. “I was a little shit with a gun. Now I’m running a business in urban agriculture. I guess I just love life.”

JANUARY 20, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

BOOKS

From the Presses, For the People Ethan Michaeli's The Defender commemorates the newspaper that captivated, compelled, and transformed black America BY SARA COHEN

hen Ethan Michaeli first walked through the doors of The Chicago Defender at 24th Street and Michigan Avenue in 1991, he knew very little of the publication and its influence. His interview for a copy editor position that day was Michaeli’s first step into the world of the newspaper and its vast history. As he soon learned, Michaeli, a Jewish graduate from the University of Chicago, had just attached himself to a news source that had, in its nearly century-long lifespan, provoked social change, endorsed countless transformative politicians and political movements, exposed barbaric demonstrations of racism, and, in more ways than one, unified a nation. The first part of Michaeli’s new book, The Defender, chronicles the efforts of Robert Sengstacke Abbott, the newspaper’s charismatic founder and publisher. A darkskinned man born to former slaves in Georgia, Abbott grew up in the presence of his stepfather, Reverend John Sengstacke, who contributed significantly to Abbott’s eventual success. Michaeli writes, “Thanks in large part to the influence of his stepfather, he refused to let others’ reactions to his complexion hamper his own expectations...his stepfather’s colorblindness built a reserve of self-confidence in Robert on which he could draw in the coming years.”

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Using the snug dining room of Henrietta Lee, the landlady of his 27th Street apartment, as a newsroom, Abbott, who “resolved to be his own reporter, editor, and circulation crew, as well as publisher,” distributed the first copy of The Chicago Defender on May 5, 1905. Though the years that followed dealt Abbott and his neophyte paper no shortage of economic hardship, The Defender’s following and staff gradually increased. Abbott went to extreme measures for fundraising and promotion, employing Pullman Car Porters to spread The Defender’s audience. “The porters,” Michaeli writes, “in regular contact with the black communities dispersed across and beyond, were perfect emissaries for The Defender; they knew every newsstand, barbershop, and other potential distribution point, from the largest cities to the tiniest rural settlements.” Abbott’s remarkable dedication and ingenuity didn’t go unnoticed; during the first two decades of publication, The Defender’s influence exploded. Enlisting the help of Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells, among others, the paper denounced the horrors of the Jim Crow South, beckoning readers North in what became known as the Great Migration. By the time Michaeli arrived at The Defender in 1991, it had endorsed refor-

¬ JANUARY 20, 2016

mative politicians such as “Big Bill” Thompson, John F. Kennedy, Harold Washington, and Barack Obama; covered the triumphs of prominent black figures such as Jack Johnson and Bessie Coleman; and featured the writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., Langston Hughes, and Gwendolyn Brooks, to name a few. Michaeli continued to work at The Defender, then under the management of Abbott’s nephew, John Sengstacke, until 1996. In addition to copyediting, Michaeli reported on the beats of the Chicago Police Department and Chicago Housing Authority, notably covering the Cabrini-Green protests. He later reported on the Nation of Islam, the Kupona Network and its fight for AIDS activism, and the Public Allies, an organization headed by soon-to-be First Lady Michelle Obama. “It took me six years to write this book, but it was a dream that I had ever since I worked there,” said Michaeli at an author talk at the Harold Washington Library on January 14. “This was a story that needed to be told.” Compiling the archives, interviews, and research for The Defender may have been arduous—the twenty-five-page bibliography attests to this fact—but the fruit of those labors, combined with masterful storytelling and an easy-to-follow chronological struc-

ture, makes Michaeli’s finished product a literary treasure. Michaeli draws upon rich sensory detail in his descriptions of historical scenes like Abbott’s annual Bud Billiken Parade, or the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. In these passages, Michaeli paints portraits that transcend the passage of time, aspiring to leave an impression that truly lasts, not unlike the newspaper itself. “Writing this book was a way to take what I had learned about what the country really is and to take it to a broader audience,” Michaeli said. “Taking a reader through the history of The Defender, I sincerely hope, will give the reader the same experience that I had by actually being at The Defender in recognizing and learning that truth.” If anything, the book’s sole shortcoming is its lack of information on the current state of The Defender. Though its coverage of Obama’s various campaigns drew attention, the newspaper shrunk in prominence in recent years, as it stopped its daily publication in order to navigate a more digital world. When asked at his author talk what The Defender can teach about the political and race-related plights facing Chicago today, Michaeli responded, “What we’re seeing in Chicago today often feels to me like an epilogue of this book. It often feels like we haven’t made much progress.”

STAGE & SCREEN

Revival on 55th Street

Bringing comedy back to Hyde Park

GOSSIP GENIE

BY ARIELLA CARMELL

hairs sit against a plain brick wall, waiting to become elements of a new universe. Two men begin pantomiming a first date, eating meals made of air. This is the essence of improvisational comedy: culling new existences from nearly nothing. It is also the ethos adopted by The Revival, a new comedy club established in Hyde Park, intent on rejuvenating the relatively dormant comedy scene on the South Side. Its name and location evoke its historical significance—the club is located on the same corner as the theater of the Compass Players, an improv troupe that was the progenitor of Second City. Comedic luminaries such as Mike Nichols and Elaine May got their start in the

cabaret on 55th Street. The Revival’s homage to them and their contemporaries can be felt; the walls of the club hearken back to their roots with black-and-white photographs of the original Compass Players. Despite having only opened this past November, The Revival is building its image, in part, on sixty years’ worth of history. “We are sitting right on the corner where the art form [of improv comedy] was invented,” The Revival’s founder John Stoops says, clasping his hands against the slick bar counter. It is evening, before show time, and he greets the people trickling in with a sense of warmth that contrasts with the club’s muted ambience. One might expect the venue, with its dim lighting and dusky color scheme, to

be a place for Beat poetry and subdued snapping, not laughter. There is little to distract the audience from the workings of the actors, no elaborate props or set design to ease the suspending of disbelief. The decor has a minimalist, coffee shop feel— the chairs are black, the walls sparse. For a place built atop mounds of antiquity, the space seems to have a paradoxical desire to be new. Stoops described the presence of The Revival as following a type of revitalization in Hyde Park that includes the expansion of retail, restaurants, and entertainment. “There seems to be something in the air,” he said, “and we thought it would be a great time to do something of this sort.” The majority of theater in Chi-

cago—comedy or otherwise—is located on the North Side, and Stoops hopes that placing The Revival on the South Side will encourage talent to diffuse geographically throughout the city, as well as promote emergence of distinctly South Side voices. Notably, The Revival is the only venue on the South Side that offers a mix of improv, stand-up, and sketch comedy. In this endeavor, “everything is genuinely created from scratch,” Stoops says. He’s referring not only to the on-the-spot nature of improvisation, but also to the building of a new community for comedy. The Revival’s projects include partnering with the University of Chicago improv troupe Off-Off Campus and offering training sessions for community members of Hyde Park or surrounding neighbors. “I feel like so many of the great cultural movements that have emanated from Chicago were actually rooted on the South Side,” he said. “It seemed like almost a miss...to not give the voices of the South Side a stage in their own backyard, to express themselves.” Nevertheless, to call The Revival— located in one of the whitest neighborhoods in the otherwise ethnically diverse South Side—emblematic of what the South Side has to offer is a tenuous claim at best. In fact, the hour of comedy I witnessed that night was comprised solely of white actors making the trek down from the North Side. This raises the question: does the Revival represent the South Side as a whole, or is it simply a product of Hyde Park’s aspiration to revitalize itself ? Stoops recognizes that it’s dubious to speak for an area of such size and variety. “I think it’s tough to generalize too much. Certainly as a resident of Hyde Park, I’m aware of the unique personality of Hyde Park...I am interested in bringing together both that world and the surrounding South Side,” he says. He doesn’t say how he will go about this, only that this combination has yet to be accomplished. The ambitions of The Revival are bold, but listening to the tepid laughter of a scant audience, I don’t feel the rejuvenation the comedy club’s name promised me. Like the rickety chair I sat in, the Revival is standing on coltish legs.

JANUARY 20, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

BULLETIN Katha Pollitt: PRO: Reclaiming Abortion Rights Kent Hall at the University of Chicago, 1020 E. 58th St., Room 107. Wednesday, January 20, 4:30pm–6:30pm. Lost when it comes to the abortion debate? Join Katha Pollitt, author of NYT Notable Book of 2014 PRO: Reclaiming Abortion Rights to hear myths surrounding abortion debunked and learn why she believes “abortion is an issue of fundamental human rights.” (Maddie Anderson)

Corporate Social Responsibility Seminary Co-op, 5751 S. Woodlawn Ave. Wednesday, January 20, 6pm. (773) 7524381. semcoop.com The idea that corporations ought to improve the world as well as their profit margins is variously a source of hope and a target of suspicion. At this event a pair of professors will present their new book, which explores the intellectual foundation of corporate social responsibility. (Adam Thorp)

How to Apply for Educator Positions St. Paul Community Development Ministries, 4550 S. Wabash Ave. Thursday, January 21, 9am–11am. (773) 528-5120. Stpaulcdm.org Interested in becoming an educator? As President Bush once said, “Is our children learning?” Attend this session to learn about the jobs available with the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice and the Illinois Department of Central Management Services. (Abe Friedman)

National Black Wall Street Power Lunch 4655 S. King Dr., Suite 203. Thursday, January 21, 1pm–3pm. (773) 268-6900. nationalblackwallstreetchicago.org Explore this exciting forum on black economic empowerment. Come hear speakers including Greg Hinton, Chief Diversity

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Officer for the Democratic National Committee. Network with business leaders and other attendees at this program based on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s grassroots economic ideas. (Anne Li)

Are Demographics Destiny in Presidential Politics? Institute of Politics, 5707 S. Woodlawn Ave. Thursday, January 21, 4:30pm–5:45pm. (773) 834-4671. politics.uchicago.edu American elections are changing. People of color encompass over thirty percent of eligible voters. With election season looming, how will these trends play out in both parties’s politics? (Abe Friedman)

Put the Guns Down 2016 Protest Chicago Police Headquarters, 3510 S. Michigan Ave. Sunday, January 24, 3pm–7pm. on.fb.me/1OCrjXX This protest against gun violence, organized by Chicago youth, will begin at CPD headquarters and make its way through Englewood to 79th Street. Attendees are encouraged to bring balloons and memorabilia to remember loved ones lost to gun violence. The protest will culminate in a prayer vigil and balloon release to honor the victims of gun and gang-related violence. (Zoe Makoul)

The Insane Chicago Way The Seminary Co-op, 5751 S. Woodlawn Ave. Tuesday, January 26, 6pm. (773) 752-4381. semcoop.com Have you heard of Spanish Growth & Development? Join John Hagedorn, author of The Insane Chicago Way: The Daring Plan by Chicago Gangs to Create a Spanish Mafia and emcee Bernadine Dohrn to learn everything you ever wondered about this organization of Chicago Latino gangs and what its history tells us about Chicago’s gang landscape today. (Maddie Anderson)

State of African-American Same Gender Loving Black LGBTQ Chicago Address Carter G. Woodson Regional Library, 9525 S.

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Halsted St. Sunday, January 31, 2pm–4pm. (773) 340-3751. In a networking event hosted by the Coalition for Justice and Respect, African-American LGBTQ attendees will attempt to bridge the gap between the community’s needs and their resources. Several speakers, including public and elected officials, will be addressing politics, faith, health, equality, and marriage. (Zoe Makoul)

VISUAL ARTS Unsuspending Disbelief Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Opening Friday, January 22, 6–8pm. Through March 13. Monday–Saturday, 8am–10pm; Sunday, 11am–9pm. Free. (773) 702 6082. arts.uchicago.edu Focusing on the relation between photograph and subject, this exhibition features the work of eleven contemporary international artists including Yamini Nayar and Mickalene Thomas. Expect conventions of photography re-contextualized at this Logan Center Gallery exhibition. (Isabelle Lim)

Nothing Personal The Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery 188, 111 S. Michigan Ave. January 23–May 1. Open daily 10:30am–5:00pm; Thursday, 10:30am– 8pm. Included in museum admission, $14$25. (312) 443-3600. artic.edu This three-artist photo and video exhibition treats “the passage from personhood to persona.” Focusing on famous women and their personae, Lorna Simpson, Cindy Sherman, and Zoe Leonard comment on modern America’s need to sweep women’s fame, roles and personhood under the rug. (Margaret Mary Glazier)

MoCP at 40 Museum of Contemporary Photography, 600 S. Michigan Ave. January 25–April 10. Open Monday–Wednesday, Friday–Saturday, 10am–5pm; Thursday, 10am–8pm; Sunday 12pm–5pm. Free. (312) 663-5554. mocp.org

From January to April, the MoCP will celebrate its 40th anniversary with a new exhibition of rare works from the likes of Diane Arbus and Andy Warhol alongside archived papers, letters, and original prints. Four decades of photographic culture are condensed into this can’t-miss showcase. (Christopher Good)

The City Between Image and Fact Kanter Meeting Center, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 220 E. Chicago Ave. Tuesday, January 26, 6pm–7pm. Included in museum admission. (312) 280-2660. mcachicago.org The first of a two-part panel discussion, experts from the Art Institute of Chicago, Concordia University, and Columbia College Chicago examine the city as represented between image and fact, using examples from photography, film, advertising, and art. Reception to follow. (Isabelle Lim)

America, the End Averill and Bernard Leviton Gallery, 619 S. Wabash Ave. Opening reception Thursday, January 28, 5pm–7pm. Through February 20. Open Tuesday–Wednesday, Friday–Saturday, 12pm–5pm; Thursday, 12pm–7pm. Free. (312) 369-8687. events.colum.edu Artists Carol Jackson, Mike Olson, and Julie Potratz join forces to offer a visual examination of threats to policy and the state. They don’t urge for revolution, but they do persuade the viewer to press pause and look at America through a more critical lens. (Margaret Mary Glazier)

Call for Entries: Bridgeport Art Center’s 4th Annual Art Competition Bridgeport Art Center, 1200 W. 35th St. Application deadline January 30. $35 application fee. Applicants must be over 18 and live within a 150 mile radius of Chicago. (773) 247-3000. bridgeportart.com Looking to showcase your art or earn up to $1000 in prize money? Mary Ellen Croteau and William Lieberman will judge

CALENDAR artwork in six categories, selecting the best pieces for display in the Bridgeport Art Center’s fourth floor gallery. Submit yours today! (Sara Cohen)

MUSIC General Zod at Reggies Reggies Rock Club, 2105 S. State St. Wednesday, January 20, 8pm. $5. 21+. (312) 9490120. reggieslive.com As it applies to the five-piece fusion band General Zod, fusion seems to mean a fusion of literally anything with anything else—from Jean-Luc Ponty to Tony Williams. In this local band's lineup, an accomplished violinist heads a group of rock instrumentalists. Zod will be joined by Shawn Maxwell's New Tomorrow alt-jazz quartet. ( Jake Bittle)

Ginuwine The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Saturday, January 30, doors 9pm, show 11pm. $35 early bird, $42.50 general admission, $100 meet-and-greet. 21+. (312) 753-5700. theshrinechicago.com R&B’s eternal golden “Pony”-boy Ginuwine heads to The Shrine for a special meet-and-greet show to support his as-yet-unreleased tenth album, titled Bachelor Again but Wiser, a nod to both his début album, Ginuwine…the Bachelor, and his recent divorce from Solé. This is the first we’ve heard from Ginuwine since his R&B supergroup, TGT, broke up in 2013, and it’s been too long. (Sam Stecklow)

Stalley The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Thursday, January 28, 9pm. $15-$20. 17+. (312) 801-2100. promontorychicago.com Right now, Ohio is known for football, Cudi, and Kasich, but with bearded MC (and Maybach Music signee) Stalley on the top of his game, the state might soon have another claim to fame. Stalley’s touring in support of his 2015 “Laughing Introvert” mixtape, but introvert or not, he’s sure to have the Promontory booming. (Christopher Good)

Avery*Sunshine The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Thursday, February 4, doors 7pm, show 8pm. $20-$40. (312) 801-2100. promontorychicago.com Avery*Sunshine prides herself on creating a true, human-to-human connection with her audience. Her upcoming performance at The Promontory is the perfect opportunity to ditch the winter wind howling in your ears in exchange for an intimate listening experience of her warm and soulful music. (Alexandra Epstein)

The Renaldo Domino Experience Reggies Music Joint, 2105 S. State St. Thursday, February 4, 8pm. $10. 21+ (312) 949-0120. reggieslive.com Indefatigable tenor Renaldo Domino has spent a lifetime crooning soul and R&B, and his six-piece Experience band has been helping him fill rooms since 2008. Opening for Domino are the Get Up With The Get Downs, whose punk-funk covers have included Domino’s songs in the past. (Neal Jochmann)

Konshens and Trina The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Friday, February 5, doors 10pm. $30. 21+. (312) 753-5700. theshrinechicago.com Dancehall/reggae artist Konshens is on tour and coming to Chicago. The wellknown rapper Trina, whose sixth album is set to drop this year, will be performing as well. Fans can look forward to a mix of riddims and raw verses, including the classic “Look Back at Me.” ( Jennifer Hwang)

STAGE & SCREEN SEMBENE! Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St. Thursday, January 21, 7:45pm. $11 general admission, $6 for members. (312) 846-2800. siskelfilmcenter.org “Let me tell you the story of the father

of African cinema...” says the narrator of SEMBENE!, a new documentary chronicling self-taught Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène’s ascent to the spotlight. Footage in English, Wolof, and French gives dimension to this tribute to a cinematic legend. (Sara Cohen)

The Frunchroom O’Rourke’s Office, 11064 S. Western Ave. Thursday, January 21, 7:30pm. Free. (773) 429-1598. thefrunchroom.com For all those now battling the winter blues, The Frunchroom is designating the fourth installment of its reading series a “Fight the winter doldrums edition.” Your cozy company, consisting of five writers from across the city, will read on topics from cycling to real estate battles to Comiskey Park. (Neal Jochmann)

Seeds of Disunion: Classics in Black Stereotypy Film Series: King Kong Black Cinema House, 7200 S. Kimbark Ave. January 22, 7pm-9:30pm. Free. (312) 8575561. rebuild-foundation.org In commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of The Birth of a Nation, BCH has been hosting a film series exploring the strong influence of racism in Hollywood’s foundational films. This latest screening, and the following discussion, will consider the suggestion that King Kong is an allegory for the slave trade. (Adam Thorp)

Stir-Friday Night—An AsianAmerican Comedy Party! The Revival, 1160 E 55th St. Friday, January 22, 8pm. $10 regular, $5 student. (866) 811-4111. the-revival.com Stir-Friday Night graces the stage at The Revival with an act created and executed by an all Asian-American team. The comedy troupe, whose alumni have gone on to appear on Broadway and star in shows such as Community and The Walking Dead, will showcase a bounty of up-and-coming performers. (Alexandra Epstein)

BAC to Broadway Cabaret Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St. Saturday, January 23, 8pm. $21. (773) 445-3838. beverlyartcenter.org This immersive offering by the Beverly Arts Center creates a portal to Broadway by seating its audience alongside performers on the Baffes Theatre stage, amid hometown performers who have volunteered for the love of the art. Ticket and beverage proceeds benefit the BAC, which is a nonprofit. (Neal Jochmann)

The Early Films of Kartemquin Chicago Filmmakers, 5243 N. Clark St. Saturday, January 23, 8pm. $8. (773) 293-1447. chicagofilmmakers.org. Chicago Filmmakers is celebrating Kartemquin Films’s anniversary, recognizing fifty years of producing powerful local documentaries. Step back in time to the cinematic powerhouse’s beginnings with this screening of three of its earliest films: What the Fuck are These Red Squares? (1970), HUM 255 (1969), and Parents (1968). (Sara Cohen)

Level Eater 6.66 Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S. Morgan St. Saturday, January 23, 5pm-1am. $25. (773) 655-6769. coprosperity.org If your mortal soul yearns for adventure, craft beer, and free T-shirts, come join this Dungeons and Dragons campaign (5th Edition). With food, libations, and merchandise for sale and a live role-playing session, the revelry will last well into the night. (Anna Christensen)

WS (WS) Film Studies Center, Cobb Hall, 5811 S. Ellis Ave. Sunday, January 24, 1pm. Free. Mature content. (773) 702-8596. filmstudiescenter. uchicago.edu Mirror, mirror, on the wall...Originally designed to accompany artist Paul McCarthy’s notorious White Snow installation, the film WS (WS) focuses on both the seven deadly sins and the seven dwarfs over the course of its seven-hour runtime. Given McCarthy’s taste for depraved antics, the film is not for the squeamish. (Christopher Good)

JANUARY 20, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15