October 15, 2014

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY OCTOBER 15, 2014

A R T S , C U LT U R E , A N D P O L I T I C S

S O U T H S I D E W E E K LY. C O M

FREE

Slow Burn

A dampened story of grit and greatness, or how Redmoon forgot their biggest spectacle KAREN LEWIS, BOB FIORETTI, SHE SHREDS, EXPRESSIONS FROM ENGLEWOOD, STRAU

&

MORE INSIDE

Logan Center Family Saturday Festival SAT, NOV 1 / 12–5 pm $5 single tickets, $20 families of 5+

Discover your child’s artistic passion with performances and hands-on art workshops!

The first Logan Center Family Saturday Festival includes special special guest performers, film screenings, drop-in activities, art workshops, and more!

Purchase festival passes at ticketsweb.uchicago.edu.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS Chicago International Children’s Film Festival: Best Buddies Join Best Buddies as they meet new friends and share adventures in these short films about friendship.

Storyteller Carmen Deedy This Havana, Cuba-born storyteller and author captures audiences with larger-than-life body language, wit, and humorous stories

+ Day of the Dead art workshops by the National Museum of Mexican Art and more!

Come back every month! Families can sample a range of activities for ages 2–10 through hourlong sessions led by local artists. This season features monthly Family Saturday workshop days and full-day Family Saturday Festivals in Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer. Teens interested in spoken word are invited to join The New Speak open mic following Family Saturdays and Family Saturday Festivals.

Family Saturdays 2–4:30 pm / FREE

OCT 11, 2014 DEC 6, 2014 FEB 7, 2015 MAR 21, 2015 MAY 16, 2015 JUN 20, 2015 JUL 11, 2015

Family Saturday Festivals 12–5 pm / $5 single tickets, $20 families of 5+

NOV 1, 2014 JAN 24, 2015 APR 18, 2015 AUG 22, 2015

LOGAN CENTER 915 E 60th St at Drexel Ave 773.702.ARTS

logan.uchicago.edu 2 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

OCTOBER 15, 2014

IN CHICAGO

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 Managing Editor Deputy Editors

Bea Malsky Hannah Nyhart John Gamino, Meaghan Murphy

Politics Editors

Osita Nwanevu, Rachel Schastok Bess Cohen Emma Collins Jake Bittle Olivia Stovicek

Education Editor Visual Arts Editor Music Editor Stage & Screen Editor Web Editor Contributing Editors

Sarah Claypoole Maha Ahmed, Lucia Ahrensdorf, Lauren Gurley

Photo Editor Illustration Editor Layout Editor

Luke White Ellie Mejia Adam Thorp

Senior Writers

Patrick Leow, Jack Nuelle, Stephen Urchick Olivia Adams, Christian Belanger, Emily Lipstein, Noah Kahrs, Maira Khwaja, Olivia Markbreiter, Jamison Pfeifer, Wednesday Quansah, Arman Sayani

Staff Writers

Staff Photographers Staff Illustrators

Camden Bauchner, Juliet Eldred, Kiran Misra, Siddhesh Mukerji Wei Yi Ow, Hanna Petroski, Amber Sollenberger

Editorial Intern

Zavier Celimene

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, spring, and winter, 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

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

City to Foot College Bill There is some good news for Chicago’s students this week: Mayor Emanuel and City Colleges of Chicago Chancellor Cheryl Hyman have announced the “Chicago Star Scholarship,” which grants qualified CPS students a fully funded education at one of seven city colleges. With a 3.0 GPA and a FAFSA application, Chicago’s high school graduates are eligible for funding that will cover their remaining tuition, book costs, and fees. The scholarship aims to support students for whom getting a degree is often an uphill battle; according to the chancellor more than half of CCC enrollees leave the system with fewer than fifteen credit hours complete.

Rahm v. Dwight A poll recently commissioned by mayoral contender Bob Fioretti found that Mayor Rahm Emanuel is less popular than commuter traffic into Chicago on the Dwight D. Eisenhower expressway. Whether there is any merit to a poll that “compares” a politician with a daily automobile phenomenon is up for discussion, but the Emanuel camp responded by saying that the poll makes it seem like Fioretti has “nothing better to say or do,” which, it must be noted, is a schoolyard-caliber rebuttal.

For more on Fioretti’s mayoral campaign and his opposition to Rahm Emanuel, see page 4.

Cover photo by Luke White.

Dear Sirs, Having eaten there, I do concede Ms. Biscuit does throw down with a hell of a biscuit and many other menu items.

However, what puzzles me is how your crack smoking, glue sniffing, Jagermeister slamming, Twinkie eating food reporter(s) could stagger west up Garfield Boulevard from the vaunted Currency Exchange Café, at Prairie Avenue, on the south side of the street, and not sample Miss Lee’s Good Food at 203 East Garfield Boulevard, just east of Indiana Avenue, one block away on the same side of Garfield, in route to Ms. Biscuit at 5431 South Wabash Avenue.

Obviously that crack, glue, Jaegermeister, Twinkie overload must have, some how, shut down their gustatorial radar. The Chicago Maroon managed to stumble across it on April 28th of this year, how did you guys miss it?

Herbert H Hardwick

IN THIS ISSUE bOb fIOrETTI IS

raLLY fOr LEWIS

grrrLS’ nIgHT OUT

SLOW bUrn

rUnnIng fOr maYOr

She used the spotlight of potential candidacy to keep her agenda at the fore.

bess cohen.....5

“These are women who are really making a difference, who are really badass and influential.”

stephen urchick.....7

a YUSHO fOr HYDE parK

mUraL SEEKS TO UnITE

bravE nEW WOrLD

WrITIng an EngLEWOOD

The menu takes pains to make it all seem cool.

TWO cOmmUnITIES

Strau simply replaces Huck Finn with a sculpture of a white plaster wolf.

jOUrnaL

“I don’t know where Bob’s base is. Good luck to him.”

lauren gurley.....4

For advertising inquiries, contact: (773)234-5388 or advertising@southsideweekly Read our stories online at southsideweekly.com

Letter to the Editor

osita nwanevu.....12

The mural outlines a mother with her eyes reverently shut, stroking a sleeping child’s head.

derek tsang.....14

olivia stovicek.....6

amelia dmowska.....15

Redmoon had proposed a thesis: Chicago resilience is stable over time.

“We have all these textbooks and stuff, and you’re not going to meet these people.”

john gamino.....19

Bob Fioretti Is Running for Mayor

BY LAUREN GURLEY

T

he majority of 2nd Ward Alderman Bob Fioretti’s fellow City Council members will tell you he has no chance against Rahm Emanuel in the upcoming mayoral election.

“It’s delusions of grandeur,” 1st Ward Alderman Proco “Joe” Moreno told the Tribune when Fioretti announced his decision to run last month.

“I don’t know where Bob’s base is.

Good luck to him,” said 21st Ward Alderman Howard Brooks.

According to a September 12 Tribune article, four out of five Chicagoans claim to have no opinion on his campaign. In other words, Bob Fioretti’s name is little known outside his horseshoe-shaped ward. But with a dismal thirty-five percent of Chicagoans approving of Rahm Emanuel’s actions and policies as mayor, a dearth of other serious contenders in the race, and fewer than 150 days until the election, “Fioretti” could very well be the next buzzword at dinner tables across Chicago.

Born to an Italian father and Polish-American mother in Roseland on the Far South Side, Fioretti traces the roots of his progressive policies and career as a civil rights lawyer to his humble working-class upbringing. Fioretti has spoken out against the shuttering of public schools and mental health clinics across the South and West Sides, actions which he believes are contributing to crime in the city’s most economically vulnerable neighborhoods. One of three aldermen to vote against the recent Emanuel budget proposal, Fioretti has also formed a small progressive caucus within City Council alongside eight other Eman4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

uel critics.

The Fioretti campaign believes that the biggest flaws in Emanuel’s policies also happen to be the most critical issues on the city’s South and West Sides: crime and violence, namely.

“He (Emanuel) is spending his time raising money and traveling around the nation, and every weekend someone gets

short-term solution to a long-term problem.

The Emanuel Administration has voiced similar opinions.

“Alderman Fioretti would come up with a comprehensive plan to address crime in the city,” said Ferrell. “We need to make our schools and mental health clinics stronger. We need job creation outside of the Loop on the South and West Sides. A

“Our plan is to let our city create the narrative.

You can go out into the city and look around. Or you can fight with a war chest." shot in this town and no one’s addressing it,” said Marcus Ferrell, Fioretti’s campaign manager, in an interview with the Weekly. Unfortunately, Fioretti himself was not available for comment.

Like many anti-violence activists around the city, the Fioretti campaign believes increasing police presence and implementing tighter gun-control laws is only a

OCTOBER 15, 2014

systemic approach needs to be created because, right now, these issues are not being addressed.”

As part of his announcement to a hundred-person crowd at East West University in the Loop, Fioretti proposed raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2018. He also vowed to implement a one-percent commuter tax on the 600,000 people who drive

into the city each day from neighboring suburbs.

Explaining Fioretti’s reasoning behind the tax, Ferrell said, “You got people outside the city who are enjoying the welfare and infrastructure of the City of Chicago and not putting anything into it. You should be able to pay your fair share and help fix our streets.”

Several years ago, Fioretti was quoted in an interview with Chicago magazine saying, “I think being mayor of this city is the toughest job there is.” Even so, he has long considered a run for mayor, often receiving criticism for his grandiose political ambitions. In 2010, ambitions for a mayoral run were put on hold by a cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment. So why did Fioretti decide to take the plunge this September?

“Crime,” said Ferrell. “Jobs. Fifty-one schools getting shut down. A new school getting opened on the North Side called Barack Obama High School, a slap in the face to the South Side. Chicago needed it.

The South Side needed it. It was time to have more than one voice.” (Emanuel’s office are now considering alternative names and locations for the selective-enrollment high school.)

In response to Fioretti’s official running announcement, the Emanuel campaign released a statement saying, “Time and again, Alderman Fioretti has shown no backbone for making tough choices and little respect for Chicago taxpayers’ pocketbooks…Chicago needs, and has, a strong leader who is willing to make tough decisions.”

POLITICS

Fioretti’s tenuous relationship with the Emanuel Administration and other City Council members was tested in 2012 when the boundaries of his ward, which included portions of Bronzeville, Little Italy, and the South and West Loop, were re-drawn roughly eight miles to the north.

For most aldermen, the new boundaries ensured re-election by concentrating black, white, and Latino voters into separate wards. But not for Fioretti: he claims that the new boundaries “set [him] up for defeat” and that he has lost his established stronghold of support.

“The (Emanuel) administration looks at Fioretti as a critic, you know, they call him a critic, and some people do, but to me he’s very important when you only have a handful of people in the progressive caucus actually questioning our broken policies,” said 32nd Ward Alderman, and fellow progressive caucus member, Scott Waguespack in a conversation with the Weekly. “I think he is leading the way in City Council, looking at things differently.”

A

lthough he is popular among his ward (even post-redistricting) for his progressive policies and ability to juggle a heterogeneous population with, at times, conflicting interests, the question remains: where will Fioretti’s support lie, both demographically and financially?

Karen Lewis, the leader of the Chicago Teachers Union, announced on October 13 that she had a brain tumor and will not pursue a bid for mayor, a move that has left Fioretti as a leading progressive candidate in the race. But he is not the fierce grassroots community organizer that Lewis

is. Nor is he the nationally known former White House Chief of Staff that Mayor Emanuel is.

Alderman Waguespack believes that Fioretti’s backing will have to come from all parts of the city; he has experience working in “a very diverse ward…listening to people in all communities across the city.”

“I think Karen has a lot to offer on education policies, but I think Alderman Fioretti has a very well-rounded background in terms of knowing what the legal issues are for the city,” said Waguespack (when Lewis was still considering running for mayor).

“The Mayor’s missed a lot of opportunities to connect to people,” he maintained.

“He’s stayed aloof to a lot of the problems and issues that people are going through.

You look at the school closings. He was very aloof on the school closings. He was like, ‘Hey I’m telling you what’s best for you and that’s how it’s going to be,’ and that same attitude has permeated every aspect of the way he governs. He governs by press release, whereas I think Alderman Fioretti would govern from the community.”

Financing a campaign will also prove challenging, as Emanuel already has the backing of major Super PACs and over $8 million sitting in the bank.

“Our plan is to let our city create the narrative,” Ferrell said. “You can go out into the city and look around. Or you can fight with a war chest. Bob has listened to the city of Chicago. We literally have talked to the folks of Chicago and we know what the real issues are.”

teddy watler

Rally for Lewis

BY BESS COHEN

U

ntil Monday night, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis was the most likely challenger to unseat Mayor Rahm Emanuel in the 2015 mayoral race.

Though the outspoken leader of 30,000 district employees had not yet officially announced her candidacy, the establishment of a Karen Lewis Exploratory Committee and other actions—like asking her husband John Lewis to prepare for a race—suggested that her plan to overcome longtime opponent Emanuel was well underway. In the months since a July Early & Often poll concluded that she was the only potential challenger with an advantage—nine percentage points—over Emanuel, the possibility of a run excited all Chicagoans seeking a candidate that would challenge the hallmarks of Chicago politics with a school-centered, community and equality-driven agenda.

So when Lewis was hospitalized on October 5, after experiencing a headache and discomfort, we hoped that it would not set her back on her still-unofficial campaign trail.

On the evening of October 13, it was announced that Lewis would not run because she had been diagnosed with a brain tumor.

I am saddened first and foremost by Lewis’s health, and I join countless Chicagoans in holding this seemingly fearless leader in our thoughts as she undergoes treatment and recovery in the coming months. I am saddened too by Lewis’s temporary absence from Chicago politics and dialogue, and by the opportunities that she will miss in the coming months to deepen her imprint on Chicago’s political landscape.

But if there is anything that Lewis has taught us in her four-year tenure as the president of the CTU, it is to rally. When she and her union were dissatisfied with the 2012 teacher contract negotiations, they rallied, leading to the first Chicago teachers strike in over a quarter century. When the Chicago Public Schools threatened to close over one-hundred schools in the city, teachers, parents, children, and, of course, the alwaysready-for-a-fight Lewis, rallied. And when the opportunity arose to possibly overcome Emanuel—whose approval ratings were at thirty-five percent as of August—she used the spotlight of potential candidacy to keep her agenda at the fore. I am confident that Lewis will rally. And even if a bid for mayor is not in her future, I look forward to the day when she does.

OCTOBER 15, 2014

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

MUSIC

Grrrls’ Night Out Shred Fest comes to Chitown Futbol

BY OLIVIA STOVICEK

White forms half of White Mystery, which describes itself as a “brother-sister rock ‘n’ roll duo” and proved one of the biggest attractions of the night, while Nothing managed Animal Kingdom, a recently-closed DIY show space. She also organizes other shows and plays in the Lemons, another band featured at Shred Fest.

For Reyna, partnerships like these are part of what makes the effort of a traveling festival worthwhile.

“I like to work with women who are really front and center in that community, and I say to them, ‘You know your scene better than I do.’ ” She continued, “these are women who are really making a difference, who ‘Who would you want to showcase at a Shred Fest in your city?’ ” Their answers led to a thirteen-hour

juliet eldred

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here’s something about Shred Fest, She Shreds magazine’s annual festival celebrating female musicians, that seemed perfectly at home inside Pilsen’s ChiTown Futbol. On most days, it’s an ordinary indoor soccer facility, but on a Saturday in October, deafening guitar and drums reverberated against its walls painted with Mexican mural motifs. Anyone ascending the curving, colorfully painted ramp to the inner doors could have felt that he or she was entering the loudly beating heart of the venue, with the music cranking up the voltime, though, it seemed natural that the next room was full of families watching soccer and wandering over to peek at the bands.

Shred Fest started in October 2011 in Portland, Oregon, as a fundraiser for She Shreds. Founded by current editor-in-chief Fabi Reyna, the magazine focuses on bringing attention to female guitarists and bass6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

ists; Reyna herself has been playing guitar since she was nine. “ guitarists, that were amazing but not represented at all,” she explained over the strains of Milwaukee all-woman punk band The Olives.

“When I did see women in magazines like Guitarist or Guitar World, I just didn’t relate to the way women were presented. So my goal with She Shreds is to introduce a new aesthetic for women musicians, especially guitarists, that’ dent, and a badass approach.” This year’s Fest marked the two-year anniversary of the magazine’s creation and the release of its sixth issue.

Since its beginnings in the Northwest, Shred Fest has traveled to Austin, Texas, and Washington, D.C., before coming to Chicago, where Reyna organized it with Chicagoans Miss Alex White and Kelly Nothing.

OCTOBER 15, 2014

and talks by several speakers. Jessica Hopper, music editor at Rookie Magazine, senior editor at the Pitchfork Review, and author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, read from her new book and discussed her experiences as a woman in music journalism. The festival moved from headliner Cassie Ramone (formerly of Vivian Girls) to a panel discussion on taking risks and pursuing success in music and then to local bands including The Funs, Lil Tits, and Swimsuit Addition.

There was a sense of solidarity in the audience, of a collective investment in Shred Fest as something more than a concert. The handful of dancers at the front urged others to join them, and they did; bands milled around talking, many clearly familiar with each other and staying long after their own sets to see friends perform. Audience members offered spontaneous help with equipment, bolstering the ranks of volunteers.

For example, Sam Larson told me she had hoped to perform in the show, but on diately asked to volunteer. “There are not a lot of festivals focused A, on DIY bands, or B, on female musicians, and I think that’s something the music industry is overlooking right now,” she said. “There’s a great community blossoming of garage rock in

Chicago where everybody goes to each other’s shows and supports each other, no questions asked.”White, too, emphasized the way people had come together in support of the show. She and Reyna met and hit it off when White Mystery was playing in Portland, and She Shreds eventually interviewed White and put her on the cover.

“When I was younger,” White said, “the only lady guitar I knew was like Lilith Fair [music festival], a very soft acoustic sound.”

As a result, she “was excited to meet someone who also really loved high-energy rock ‘n’ roll.”

White has been involved in putting on shows before, one of many facets of White Mystery’s packed schedule. In addition to touring internationally, they also represent the #equipped advertising campaign for Levi’s. “Miss Alex Whites brother, Francis Scott Key, discussed how the two of the born in Chicago, started playing music at a young age and began going to all-ages DIY shows, “taking our parents’ taste and running with it.” With such a long-term investment in this scene, it was no wonder that Alex was inspired to work with She Shreds when they wanted to take Shred Fest to Chicago.

Shred Fest is just one part of White’s and Reyna’s endeavors. It’s only one of several things Reyna hopes to do with the platform, other visions including a documentary or even eventually a school. But the Fest is also an exciting realization of the magazine’s efforts to inspire and provide a voice for women guitarists. She Shreds the way women are represented in the music industry.

“When big companies advertise with us,” Reyna said, “they’re forced to include women in their advertisements, and then they use them in other places.” Shreds Fest is, as she put it, “like a physical version of the magazine in action, in full form. People are so obviously inspired by it...the magazine is turning into a movement. It’s not what I planned, but it’s awesome that it’s happening that way.”

SPECTACLE

Slow Burn A dampened story of grit and greatness, or how Redmoon forgot their biggest spectacle

BY STEPHEN URCHICK

O

n October 4, the crowd at the Great Chicago Fire Festival collectively inhaled as an engineer’s headlamp crashed toward the Chicago River. Only moments before, he had been hesitantly chopping into one of the towers on the Festival’s central floating sculpture.

Three two-story floating Victorian houses—constructed by the Pilsen-based, spectacle-art-theater company Redmoon— had been moored between the Columbus and State Street bridges in the days before the show. Burn tests had indicated that the structures would last only nine or ten minutes when they finally went up in flames.

Yet the fires had smoldered well past that mark, and as more and more of the thirty thousand spectators grumbled unhappily, the operations crew began attempting stunts that weren’t worth all the hazard pay in the world.

The engineer with the lost headlamp slipped as a shower of cinders, a flaming plank, caved out right before him. One leg

dipped into the river. He laid there a moment, straddled half-off the pontoon.

“We’re having some electrical difficulties.”

Rob Stafford, of NBC-5 fame, had been a weirdly disembodied presence all evening, his projected cheer clashing off the concrete canyons of the Riverwalk. His lush narration on Chicago’s early-industrial era had transitioned into cursory, halting excuses for the white-lamped shadows vainly poking around the Fire Festival’s half-burning sculptures.

The Great Chicago Fire Festival had originally been pitched as a celebration of Chicago’s resilience in the wake of the titular catastrophe’s destruction. To read the homes themselves as “resilient” is both a bad joke at Redmoon’s expense and an expensive one for arts foundations and taxpayers—$2 million, $350,000 from city coffers. The crowd was reasonably anticipating the kind of thrills teased by the steamboats that flared their propane spouts

close against the Riverwalk: heart-clenching, glorious, but ultimately brief and ephemeral. But when the time came, the propellant-soaked wood on the houses refused to take. Call it wind, or rain, or warped wiring, those babies didn’t burn.

The riverbank crackled with applause as the engineer pushed himself up from his precarious fall and bowed off, ducking around the smoldering pontoon’s southwest corner. What Redmoon lacked in their trademark spectacle, misfortune repaid in dangerously genuine theater. The Fire Festival was reasserting itself as the human drama it’d been all along.

Redmoon had spent the whole summer partnering with fifteen different neighborhoods, rolling out smaller Fire Festival spectacles on the North and South Sides.

Along the way, they meticulously recorded hundreds of present day stories of “grit and greatness,” to commemorate Chicago’s historical rebuilding project. Redmoon had proposed a thesis: Chicago resilience is sta-

ble over time. What helped the city bounce back in 1871 still helps the city meet its challenges in 2014. The nonstarter on the river dragged these principles back under the spotlight, as the Redmoon techs improvised to keep the show going.

The Great Chicago Fire Festival was not intended to be brief and ephemeral. It was an exploration of a static trait. Redmoon trailers chugged tirelessly from Austin to Avondale, Englewood to Woodlawn, North Lawndale to South Shore in pursuit of this idea. Only a fraction of the Fire Festival took place on the Chicago River. But, sadly, only a fraction of the summer’s work was visible from the riverfront: sideline shows, a cavalcade of photographs dangling from the lampposts along Wacker Drive, a brief prologue on the loudspeakers.

Redmoon’s best work lay in sustaining an artistic experiment for four months, across an entire city, yet they let the city’s hopes finally rest in three incombustible mansions. From this mismatch issued an-

OCTOBER 15, 2014

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

gry aldermen and caustic tweets, all proclaiming the Festival considerably less than the sum of its parts. The detractors are right that the “Grand Spectacle” finale sputtered and choked, but the entire Fire Festival was—if anything—a spectacularly slow burn.

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his retelling of Redmoon’s story of Chicago’s “grit and greatness” begins in August, with really pretty cars. Lovingly waxed fenders and dreamy chassis are drawn up in two long files adjacent to a Pilsen concrete-mixing yard. The summer sun angrily glances off the automotive polish. It’s a far cry from the damp and bitter forty degrees of the October 4 Grand Spectacle yet to come. Somewhere on a distant P.A., a sultry, sibilant male voice proclaims that “the lowrider rides a little higher.” (A friend later says this is obviously the <i>George Lopez</i> theme song) The “Slow & Low Community Lowrider Festival” was the work of the Chicago Urban Arts Society. Drawing from all over the midwest, CUAS had curated super-snazzy hydraulics, whitewall tires of every manufacture, enough chrome for a fifties sci-fi film, and stripes of all colors.

In short, cars you could write erotic poetry about.

Redmoon’s workers were not yet in sight from the CUAS check-in booth, but their theater’s boxy façade lay just a block and a half to the north. Redmoon had effectively signed on as a volunteer, making the Lowrider Festival a sponsored “Neighborhood Event” of the Fire Festival. In support of these designated events, Redmoon carted out various ready-made spectacles to spread the word about their up-and-coming riverfront festivities over the course of the summer.

I hear Redmoon before I see them.

They have an emcee with a handle that sounds like a note-taking lapse: DJ Such’n’Such. Mr. Such’n’such has selected a heart-pumping mix of bouncy Latino pop. He is enthroned upon a storm: a “Cyclone Grill,” to be precise. Like the cars that flank it, this industrial-grade barbequing carousel is an accomplished piece of engineering.

To build your very own Cyclone Grill, cut a solid metal disk fifteen feet in diameter and suspend it about five feet off the ground around a fifteen-foot high steel core. Make sure it rotates freely. Strap on nine Weber Grills and all the culinary accouterments your local chef might need, a fully-fledged sound system, and large fans 8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

and sunshades for the comfort of all involved. Harness trikes at even points along the disk, and invite young children to ride in circles and whip up the tempest with their pedal power. Deposit tin-wrapped, juicy-hot hamburgers into the messenger boxes on the backs of the trikes. Recruit a small army of interns and volunteers to dress the fixings and distribute refreshingly cold root beer at an adjacent table. Charge absolutely nothing.

The Redmoon volunteers helped conduct crowds from the eye of the storm to the lens of a camera. The Mobile Photo Factory—a portable picture studio and printing center, painted in its own fiery livery—had cleverly concealed itself among the ranks of lowriders. The Factory represented the Fire Festival’s staple summer spectacle. Like most impressive

odds,” “I celebrate Halloween and X-Mas,” “I overcome language barriers.” A lady leaned over and asked if I knew how to spell “metastasize.” (I did not.) The cancer survivor and I agreed that four syllables were probably too many for that small field.

Grit and greatness come concisely.

All the while, Redmoon’s interns ran their Factory with Fordian efficiency. They juggled their attention across their visitors; sponges and clear canisters of cleaning solution danced across their hands. (One intern confided that dirty chalkboards had been a source of recent contention.) Two interns staffed the front welcome table.

One ran the printer. Two more furnished buttons.

A more nebulous band had fanned out into the crowd, conspicuously engineering wonder, or so their black t-shirts (“I SUP-

Redmoon was collecting interviews with festivalgoers.

Did I have a story of resilience, grit, or greatness to tell? meteorology, the Cyclone Grill turned out to something of a rarity, appearing far less frequently than this portable picture studio cum printing center. The faces suspended from the lampposts along Wacker Drive on the day of the Grand Spectacle had all issued from the Factory.

After signing a release, I was handed chalk and a flame-shaped chalkboard. On one side, I completed the block-lettered fragment “I OVERCOME,” in one or two words. On the reverse, I similarly told them what “I CELEBRATE.” I ducked into the trailer, and they snapped a few shots as I held up the sign. Redmoon then stamped my face onto a button and laser-printed it into a few stickers—all for my own use, all free of charge.

Ten or fifteen people seemed to trail behind the welcome table at any given time, flames in their hands and sparks in their eyes. A sampling of their chalkboards produced snatches like: “I overcome the

OCTOBER 15, 2014

PORT ENGINEERING WONDER”) loudly declared. One wonder engineer stood circled by four gentlemen sporting bepatched leather vests, chains, and military caps, all nodding silent approval. He was pitching the October 4 spectacle. He gestured expressively, speaking half-confidentially: “And it’s just all going to burn down!”

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t a different venue, beneath the same unrelenting summer heat, the Mobile Photo Factory had just finished setting up. The sponsored Neighborhood Event that afternoon was the United We Drum Family Day, at the Logan Center in Hyde Park. The drummers would drum, the shaker players would shake, all while Redmoon offered their nifty, carnival-style booth as a supplementary diversion.

While I waited for the show to start, the Logan Center beckoned to me and

Kristin Walko, a fourth-year University of Chicago undergraduate and Redmoon intern, as an air-conditioned sanctuary.

Walko spoke fondly of the building on her way in: its various nooks, the hole one of her own art installations had left in the ceiling above our meeting space. “I love the walls here,” she said, reaching up to pat the plaster.

All summer, the Photo Factory’s crew of interns rotated through different duties.

They stamped personalized buttons on one day and toted cameras and microphones the next. The interns were responsible for seeking out individuals who wanted to elaborate about their statements on the Photo Factory chalkboards. If Redmoon was going to conduct a Great Chicago Fire Festival and celebrate grit, greatness, and renewal, they intended to chronicle current, man-on-the-street narratives of triumph against the odds. Walko and her fellow interns were after the documentary evidence.

This turned out to be the source of much well-intentioned handwringing.

“You never just want to use a person as a tool to get to an endpoint,” Walko said.

She spent hours poring over the video interviews, compiling and cutting. Of all the footage taken over the summer, only thirty-four interviews finally made their way onto the Fire Festival’s YouTube channel.

Each interview averages only one or two minutes.

“I’m worried about my editing,” Walko admitted. “There are very few people who are great speakers—and they have great bites.” Her interviewees had fantastic tales that rambled and roved, but resisted PR-style compression. Still, Walko’s bosses would often ask her to try to get a clip down “to six or eight seconds.”

“It’s more important to protect the person’s representation,” Walko said. “I don’t want to make someone a martyr, but tell their story accurately.” The project made her realize that, “as a storyteller, I have an obligation to represent them in their true spirit.”

This frequently took the form of abandoning otherwise compelling stories entirely. Walko cited one woman who spoke about a domestic abuse incident. “She changed her mind: ‘I don’t want to talk about that!’ ” Walko believed that people were willing to speak to her because they felt comfortable around their families and in their home communities. “They want to have a voice, and this is an opportunity—nobody

SPECTACLE

luke white

The performers from St. Therese Chinese School were a ray of sunshine against the storm and squall. ever asks! We want to hear more about it,” she said.

I asked her if all her interviews were so heavy. Was there anything light, or even funny in her experience? Walko reached for a story about one administrator’s lifelong involvement at the South Chicago Art Center, somewhat unexpectedly captured while making arrangements with the institution over the phone. But, she finally broke straight with me. Can you take a single mother’s story lightly? The subject matter demanded her attention, and her gravity.

“I don’t expect them to laugh and joke about being a single parent.”

Nevertheless, this story of single parenthood was her favorite encounter in the Fire Festival thus far. Redmoon’s hunt for grit and greatness nosed her along to the find the most crucial kernel in that woman’s tale.

“You could see she was a really great mom.”

“T

hat’s it!?” A bystander had overheard our photographer and I discussing the scale of Redmoon’s mansion sculptures. The skies had yet to clear on the afternoon before the Grand Spectacle, and the high winds spat fine mist into our faces. The man approached us. He mentioned the day when the river’s bridges had gone up to admit the pontoons downtown.

“I had the same complaint! They said they were full houses!”

From the concrete embankments along Wacker Drive, several stories above water level, the three mansions looked small and fragile.

During our talk, Kristin Walko had joked about the mundane exigencies of her work with the Photo Factory: how UofC

students aren’t known for their brawn, how she took quiet amusement in being the heaviest lifter on the Redmoon team.

“We’re climbing on top of a trailer...” she recalled, “things are awkward, things are breaky, things are always changing.”

The mansions appeared pretty breaky.

Down below, framed between the glowering State and Wabash bridges, the western and central pontoons looked more appropriately impressive. Engineer Brandon Roost, also known as “The Rooster,” propped himself against a metal railing.

A Redmoon staffer was pointing out the various features of the plastic-clad Go-Pro camera that would sit strapped to his head.

Roost belonged to the team that welded the mansions’ pontoons from scratch.

The rafts not only had to support the weight of the houses, but also fit onto flatbed trucks for transport and successfully trap each sculpture’s charred debris with a network of

hidden chicken wire. Tricked out in rubber slickers and boots, the red-bearded Rooster had been asked to perch on one of several hydraulic booms almost completely concealed beneath the Chicago River.

“It was a strongly worded suggestion from the director,” he laughed.

Roost reassured us that the water with which he’d already been splashed today was warm compared to the present air temperature.

As soon as the mansions were well and truly aflame, Roost would rise forty feet into the air on the steel boom and impotently attempt to douse the inferno with a fire monitor affixed to his platform. His Go-Pro would stare into a hellish maw from above. Our own photographer was duly impressed. Walko’s summertime video interviews were arguably small potatoes stacked against this kind of footage.

OCTOBER 15, 2014

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

luke white

Call it wind, or rain, or warped wiring, those babies didn’t burn.

Y

et the houses barely flickered, and in hindsight Rooster’s Dantesque vignette didn’t quite pan out as Redmoon had intended. The brightest spot on that cloudy day didn’t come forty terrifying feet above the pyrotechnic pilot lights. Rather, it presented itself as sixteen different dance, music, and spoken-word performances in AMA Plaza and Pioneer Court, as the day’s earlier docket of sideshows. The documentary recordings obtained by the Redmoon interns—the repeated appearances of the Mobile Photo Factory, the Cyclone Grill—proved 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Redmoon’s bravest work lay in sustaining an artistic experiment for four months, across an entire city, yet they let the city’s hopes finally rest in three incombustible mansions.

part and parcel of Redmoon’s master plan to draw in fifteen partner neighborhoods, which these performers now represented before the public.

The performers from St. Therese Chinese School were a ray of sunshine against the storm and squall. A little contingent of green-robed sprouts bobbed between one older group of girl tumblers. A second group of students manipulated the show’s undulating silk dragon. They were overshined by a towering adult dancer, shaking a radiant yellow disk, trembling as she stretched herself to her fullest height—

SPECTACLE seemingly a solar goddess. All refused to acknowledge the chill through their sheer outfits, the embroidery catching gray light and scattering it with each movement.

Parents questing for home videos braced tripods against the autumn gusts, where Redmoon interns had once lugged them in merciless mugginess.

The spectacle produced by that one dance group generated more cheer and warmth than any flaming mansion.

The thirty thousand people who crowded the riverfront that evening weren’t there for the spectacle alone. Among them were parents, grandparents, extended family—friends and co-workers and teachers.

They had assembled to support the talent that had rushed to the heart of the city and choked Michigan Avenue with a clot of culture. Some of the people who waved the wood and paper signs, proclaiming themselves residents of “ENGLEWOOD,” or “SOUTH CHICAGO,” were braving the elements and the commute for the pure and simple reason that their hometowns deserved a presence downtown.

The great failure of the Great Chicago Fire Festival was that its most important element fizzled—the prolonged engage-

ment of Chicago neighborhoods in artistic production was pitifully underemphasized.

Redmoon ultimately lavished too little spectacle on their most impressive accomplishment. They broke that most cherished rule: instead of showing us the city’s collective contributions, Mr. Stafford told us over the loudspeakers.

The booths of the Neighborhood Bazaar—an assembly of craft vendors from Redmoon’s partner communities—seemed to spend most of their time wrapped in protective plastic sheathing. The hundreds of Photo Factory images that had been captured—culled to a mere handful—flapped unremarkably in the wind. The Cyclone Grill ought to have been in full force, helping to tastily trim the snaking queues for food truck dinners with its hot, juicy, and totally gratis hamburgers.

For what it’s worth, the Grand Spectacle itself fared just fine, yielding its own share of conspicuous successes even without the houses. The actor wildly ringing the inaugural gong was hearteningly expressive, his skiff zipping by in a cloud of burning sage and incense. The combination of the Chicago’s Children Choir with the droning, amplified synth made the appari-

tion of their tour boat—the singers’ sweet, ghostly register—seem dreamlike and surreal.

Despite the popular groan, Redmoon didn’t “burn” the city of Chicago. They burned themselves by shortchanging their hard work. In presenting the Fire Festival’s own story, Redmoon enacted the kinds of errors their interns attempted to avoid while presenting the stories of the city. They trimmed their winding, ram-

bling trek across town into a brief, glorious bite that—on account of a just little wetness—stuttered beneath hundreds of eager flashbulbs. Now that the smoke has settled, Redmoon’s own narrative more clearly reads as an effort to build relationships up, though they couldn’t burn their own houses down.

UChicago Reads!

New and Notable on the University of Chicago Campus William Deresiewicz

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OCTOBER 15, 2014

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

BY OSITA NWANEVU

luke white

A12 tinySOUTH charredSIDE octopus salad is a serviceable for those seeking daintier fare.

WEEKLY OCTOBER option 15, 2014

FOOD

A Yusho for Hyde Park

BY OSITA NWANEVU

Y

our reaction to being served the implausibly large bowl of “Japanese Loaded Fries,” misleadingly placed in the “Snacks & Sides” section of Yusho’s menu, will depend on a few things.

Whether the writhing and curling mass of bonito tuna flakes it’s topped with—shaved so thinly that the heat waves of any dish they’re placed upon make them move as if each is some living thing—weirds you out.

Whether you believe halfway through that the savory kimchi gravy coating everything, including your fingers, is enough of an obstacle for you to attempt the absurd but easy feat of eating French fries with a pair of chopsticks. And, ultimately, whether the remnants of the gravy-covered fries stuck to the bottom of the bowl remind you of the fries drenched in mild or hot sauce left over at the end of a wing dinner at Harold’s Chicken Shack.

Across the street that hat restaurant looks the same as ever from Yusho’s big side windows, even as hungry patrons flock to the new kid on the block—this blue cube from the North Side that crash-landed across the street from CVS and plays Dirty Projectors records.

Yusho is the second Matthias Merges restaurant to open in Hyde Park, following A10’s debut late last year. It’s also the city’s second Yusho—the original has been a hip fixture in Logan Square since 2011. Some in the foodie press have taken to calling the 53rd Street location “baby Yusho,” a moniker that gets across the compact size of the new space as well as the similarly small place it has in the city’s food scene compared to its big brother. But “baby” or not, the new Yusho is the latest major coup in the University of Chicago’s campaign to bring new restaurants to its tight corner of the South Side.

But there’s a world of difference between the offerings on Yusho’s menu and the kind of European-inspired fare that has brought crowds to A10 and the similarly trendy Promontory over the past few months. Yusho serves up food from a imaginary Japanese street—one where the food

carts play New Pornographers tunes from humble boom boxes and all the brick-andmortar establishments have hired interior designers. Some of it seems authentic. The menu takes pains to make it all seem cool as well. You can order soy-glazed chicken “drummies” or fried chicken in a steam bun garnished with “spicy business,” for instance.

There’s lots of ramen to be had, naturally. The “Logan Poser Ramen” is already a crowd favorite. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the skewered and breaded item that accompanies the dish’s generous helping of noodles is a fish stick, alongside the large square of seaweed partially submerged in the broth and a poached egg. But it’s actually a skewer of shredded pig tail, tender enough to be plucked apart with chopsticks and incorporated into the broth for salt and spice. In theory, anyway.

The savory taste the Japanese call “umami” dominates both the dish and one’s palate with a dull heaviness owing to the weakness of the dish’s other flavors. The same is largely true of the “Ten-Buck Ramen,” a similar ramen bowl with a shredded chicken “matzo ball,” although the heat of the Thai basil and collection of other spices worked into the chicken add other flavor notes to even out that dish.

A tiny charred octopus salad is a serviceable option for those seeking daintier fare. The octopus itself is salted just enough, and its chewiness meshes well with the texture of the greens and green beans. The salad also includes a cluster of enoki mushrooms, a variety that grows in thin spindles and tastes about as delicate as it looks.

One of the most satisfying items on Yusho’s menu is even smaller than the salad. One could fit perhaps two of Yusho’s steamed pork belly buns into the palm of one’s hand. You only get one, but this seems fair given the amount of flavor and texture worked into those three or so bites: the tangy sweetness of the pork belly glaze, the tenderness of the pork belly chunks themselves, the tartness of the pickled cucumber, and the pillowy softness of the bun.

The cinnamon soft-serve also demands to be tried, if only for the odd experience of eating something that tastes exactly like a cinnamon Pop-Tart with a spoon. The ice cream is topped with bits of another sugary breakfast treat—chunks of Cinnamon Toast Crunch melded with white chocolate that are described on the menu as “crunchy business.” It’s a whimsical item that clashes strangely with the rest of the menu. It’s also delicious.

Yusho serves up food from a imaginary Japanese street—one where the food carts play New Pornographers tunes from humble boom boxes and all the brick-and-mortar establishments have hired interior designers.

Yusho boasts a respectable alcohol menu—the product of a protracted legal battle with neighborhood residents over alcohol licensing that delayed the restaurant’s opening. Winning that battle was crucial for both Merges and the University—the project of making Yusho Hyde Park’s coolest new restaurant wouldn’t have been complete without sake and spirits. That project likely would have succeeded even if Yusho’s dishes did not. Fortunately, quite a few of them do.

Yusho, 1301 E 53rd St. Daily, 4-11 PM. $5$14. (773)643-1652. yushohydepark.com OCTOBER 15, 2014

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

deidre koldyke

Mural Seeks to Unite Two Communities The EarthHeart Foundation and Green Star Movement unveil a mosaic

BY DEREK TSANG

“W

e made something where there was nothing at all,” announced 20th Ward Alderman Willie Cochran at the unveiling of the mural at 63rd Street and South Wallace Avenue on October 10. “And by including children in the building process, we’ve exposed them to the process by which they can achieve greater good.”

The dozen or so kids at the unveiling chased each other and played with the oversized novelty scissors brought to cut the ribbon. Shortly after Cochran spoke, the EarthHeart Foundation cut the ribbon on what they’ve dubbed the “Peace Mural between Englewood and Woodlawn.”

EarthHeart and its collaborators at the Green Star Movement have spent the last four and a half weeks replacing the old, 14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

peeling advertisements and graffiti on the 63rd and Wallace underpass with a very different kind of advertisement: a call for peace.

At the center of the mural’s tessellations is EarthHeart’s logo, a red heart curled around a globe. Four doves—two blue, two purple—are spaced throughout alongside the words “peace, love, unity, and hope” in all caps.

Diedre Koldyke founded EarthHeart in 2012 to mobilize the community of mothers in Woodlawn and Englewood as “change leaders and peace builders.” Koldyke imagined the mural as a “subliminal message” for passersby.

“Peace is what we’re trying to bring about, through love,” said Koldyke. “You need unity for love, and hope for all that.”

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Every part of the mural process united members of the Englewood and Woodlawn communities and beyond. EarthHeart raised $10,021 for the project on Kickstarter, and they chose the Wallace underpass because of its position as a bridge between Woodlawn and Englewood. Groups of kids from nearby schools volunteered with EarthHeart to install the finger-sized, quadrilateral tiles, which Green Star designed to withstand harsh Chicago winters.

The Green Star Movement, which designs community art projects throughout Chicago, used mirror fragments for all of the words on the mural. Because volunteers were careful but not consistent with their placement, the tiles reflect sunlight in every direction.

If the north side of the mural is in-

spirational, its south side is sublime. With precious few spindly black tiles set against an off-yellow background, the mural outlines a mother with her eyes reverently shut, stroking a sleeping child’s head. The mother and child are circumscribed by EarthHeart’s catchphrase, “Mother Ambassadors For Peace,” and a halo of reflective tiles.

“I needed something nice to look at on the bus every day,” one Woodlawn mother explained. But many of the community members at the unveiling believed that the mural would also make a tangible impact on community interactions.

“I’ve had too many of my friends die in gang violence,” said an Englewood student.

“Peace and love are what we need to see.”

VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION

Brave New World

Joseph Strau’s islands sit adrift in the Renaissance Society

BY AMELIA DMOWSKA

A

boy and a slave rafting down the Mississippi river, a night unfurling like an inky mirror of the river below it, a cottony breeze carrying the sound of chirping cicadas. The Renaissance Society’s current exhibition, “The New World, Application for Turtle Island,” by Josef Strau, conjures up such Mark Twainlike images for some, says the artist. Strau simply replaces Huck Finn with a sculpture of a white plaster wolf, Jim with a bear wrapped in an emerald scarf, and the raft with a green cart. Although this odd group is stationary, the creatures clutch paddles as if ready to meander with the guests through the maze of platform-islands guarded by other plaster wolves, bears, and turtles.

Amid these islands, tall lamps stand like welcoming sentries. While the fences ringing these islands seem to create barriers between each platform, the pieces are connected by stream-of-consciousness text and patterns.

The integration of text within the constructions allows Strau to draw connections among objects, words, and images.

As a result, the exhibition is organized like a book, in which the text of the historical narrative—or what Strau calls the “voice of memory”—is juxtaposed with the organization of art objects in real time. The repeating motifs of enclosures and boundaries within the exhibition, specifically the staccato of fences and disjointed white platforms that compose the base of separated, island-like assemblages, naturally call attention to themes related to immigration and entering the so-called “New World.”

Strau, however, resists ascribing meaning to his work and avoids all political discussion.

“I cannot give intentions,” says Strau.

“My work is about that—I avoid intentionality, but go into post-intentionality. Explaining my work is a torture because the meaning arises out of practice.” The bear and the wolf, for instance, became significant to Strau’s work only after he conceived them. Strau explains that his European colleagues in Berlin scoffed at the preliminary sketches of these plaster creatures, chuckling at their child-like quality. When

tom van eynde

Josef Strau, “The New World, Application for Turtle Island,” installation view, 2014. Courtesy the artist; House of Gaga, Mexico City; Greene Naftali Gallery, New York; and the Renaissance Society, Chicago.

Strau showed his designs to his partners in Mexico, however, they were supportive and enthusiastic about helping to produce the sculptures. In the face of the criticism from his colleagues, the sculptures gained new significance, embodying a reaction to the exclusivity of the European art scene.

“Europeans don’t appreciate the hilarity of the bear and the wolf, and they say no one wants to read text in an art exhibition,” Strau says. “When I say I want to come to America, they ask if I am a Ronald Reagan fan.”

When describing his fascination with America, Strau stresses that Europeans

should be more aware that their world is not the pinnacle of culture, poetry, or the arts.

While Strau believes that the artistic and intellectual circles in Europe are uninviting and distant, he notes that America’s culture has always seemed welcoming. Strau maintains, however, that these positions are purely personal. He insists that his work remain separate from overt political provocation, emphasizing that the pieces are simply an exploration of his attraction to American culture. In this way, the design of the exhibition was a subjective, reflective, and lonely process. The sculptures showcased, however, were the result of a partnership

with the artists in Mexico City who created them; although initially solitary, the exhibition is ultimately collaborative. While emphasizing communication, culture, and encounters, the disjointed islands ringed by fences also hint at enclosure. While the exhibition avoids intentionality, it cannot avoid significance.

The New World, Application for Turtle Island. The Renaissance Society. 5811 S. Ellis Avenue. September 21-November 9, 2014.

(773)702-8670. renaissancesociety.org

OCTOBER 15, 2014

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

Writing an Englewood Journal

An interview with Corey Hall

BY JOHN GAMINO

C

orey Hall teaches English composition at Kennedy-King College, and is the editor of Expressions from Englewood, an anthology of personal writing. Expressions, which collects poetry and prose from “people who live, work, and/or go to school in this community,” was sprung from the belief that writing from life had a place outside the classroom, and that writing in the public sphere serves a purpose, if not a definite one. “It’s just giving people a voice who deserve it,” he says. “Because otherwise they might not have it.” Hall, who is currently editing the seventh volume, told me he takes around eighty-five to ninety percent of the essays from his classes, and the rest from writers he knows. I talked with him in his office at Kennedy-King, in the late afternoon, just before his first class of the semester.

What do you look for in the essays, in other people’s writing?

Personal voice. A story that people can either relate to or have an interest in. Because you’re not going to be able to relate to everything.

If you let people express themselves, you’ll be surprised with what you get. And tell them, you write what you can, you write what interests you to the best of your ability. There’s one guy, I have an essay of his, it was confidential [in the class] but it was very good. I’m going to ask him for it soon—he had to deal with coming out, and he knew his mother wasn’t going to accept that.

So he wrote this essay, this beautiful essay with the confidential clause, and I said, “Hey bud, we gotta get that essay.” And I don’t want to do “by anonymous.” I hope he doesn’t have a problem with it; I’ll send out a group email to a certain section of writers, and let him know that this essay is worth publishing. I don’t think he’ll say no, because I told him I wanted to take it, but I hope he doesn’t say no at the last minute.

It all just comes down to letting people be themselves and express themselves.

You use the word “expression” a lot, in the 16 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

title of your project for instance, but also in your introductions to each volume, where you call every contributor an “Expressionist.” What does this term mean for you?

I’ll go back to Von Freeman, who had the South Side jam session for many years; when someone would get up to play, he would say “Express yourself. Be yourself, show us what you got.” And I use that because I want them to feel comfortable expressing themselves even when they talk about topics that make them uncomfortable.

I tell my students, when you do this kind of writing, it’s like that cartoon Tom & Jerry, where Tom is always chasing Jerry, just chasing him and chasing him. And then there’s that sign that says “End of Technicolor,” and then they go into black and white. And so it’s like that area. I tell them, I say, “You’re going to get to that point where you’ve never been before. And you’ll say, ‘What is this?’” And I tell them, “Keep going, keep swimming, don’t stop and look around and survey this new scene. You got there some way, keep going.”

These books prove that, when you allow people to express themselves, honestly,

OCTOBER 15, 2014

and without judgment, you’ll be impressed with what you get. These come out of a Composition 1 class, most of the essays, Comp 1 and Comp 2, but there’s no class for Expressions. This originated when I was a part-time teacher, seeing really good essays and thinking, “This essay deserves

attention.” We’ve had this class for sixteen weeks, but I want you to be thinking outside these four walls. It’s not just, “Okay, let’s do this book thing for 16 weeks and then, ‘Next...’ ” It’s called Expressions from Englewood be-

BOOKS

cause that’s where they’re from. But not every story is about Englewood; if I did that I would have an awfully small edition. They take place in the world, that’s what it is.

Who’s your audience—people within Englewood, people outside...?

Whoever wants to read it.

A lot of [the students] have not been told that they write well or they’re smart. When I told one writer, who’s in here twice, and I gave her the books—a tiny woman, she’s probably about 4’10’’—she went through a shock this big, and I was like, I hope she didn’t just pass out in my office. I told her, “It was good so I published it.”

It’s doing more than just teaching a course.

People can carry this around. And one of the best things of the books is that people pass it around and say, “Oh there’s a friend of mine in there.” Well you can be in there, too. You know, we have all these textbooks and stuff, and you’re not going to meet these people. I pull my essays from “outside” sources—the Internet, anthologies—and what I call the “inside” source, a book like this. And I say, “You might know these people.”

What do you want the stories to expose?

Are you interested in showing the positive aspects of the community, things that have gone underexposed, or not necessarily?

It’s the underexposed aspect that has always existed here. It’s just being written out. Now this is not the Good News Journal, there are some stories in there—there’s a story, I think in either book five or book six, where this student of mine, she had

shot somebody. So, there’s some of that, it’s there.

There was one essay where the writer was going to give her daughter up for adoption, and then she changes her mind. We had this reading at the library, and when she was finished reading her daughter came over and hugged her. This was a kind of “get me over” essay.

After that, [the next story begins], “At eight years old she did incest by my sister.” And then after that, I didn’t realize that the next essay, “Choices,” says: “I recall sitting in the lobby of the abortion clinic.” And I’m like, are you trying to kill people? Do you want everybody to start committing suicide? But that’s just the way it happened. The heavy, heavy essays just happened to be concentrated like that. But the whole journal isn’t like that, the whole journal isn’t bleak like that. But that’s life, those things happen.

I write from time to time for Newcity, and they had the top five lists at the end of the year. I had the top five things you want to hear on WBEZ, and I said, a black person, without a criminal record or a social dysfunction on This American Life. As good as that show is, I’ve listened to it enough to know that if there’s a black person there’s going to be a problem. Even a station that’s supposed to be refined like that and educated, they do the same thing as the so-called mainstream media. They rarely come here to expose good things.

Like I said, this is not the Sunshine Journal. It’s presenting people. It shows the talent that exists in this community. People are going to think what they’re going to think.

OCTOBER 15, 2014

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 17

STAGE & SCREEN

The Retrieval and The Way of the Jegna It’s not every evening that one gets to travel back to 1864 for an hour and a half before returning to the present to hear from two empowering modern voices, but the DuSable Museum’s October 23 film and lecture pairing promises just that. The night begins with The Retrieval, a film about a thirteen-year-old black boy who stays afloat in the midst of the Civil War by working for white bounty hunters. The film, which explores themes of loyalty, survival, and the price of freedom in a time of slavery, will be followed by a lecture from “Kwesi” Ronald Harris and Kwaw Oscar Lester (a.k.a. Triple Blak). Harris, director of the African Male Resource Center of Chicago State University, and Lester, a spoken word artist and art educator, will discuss “The Way of the Jegna.” Jegna is a celebrated title in African culture, referring to a brave hero who protects the culture and the way of the people while continuing to grow and learn. DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 E. 56th Pl. Thursday, October 23, 6pm-9pm. $10, $5 for DuSable members and students with ID. (773)947-0600. dusablemuseum.org (Mari Cohen)

Putney Swope “I’m not going to rock the boat. Rockin’ the boat’s a drag—what you do is sink the boat,” growls Putney Swope, an advertising firm’s token black executive who is accidentally elected chairman of the board in Robert Downey Sr.’s 1969 cult satire, Putney Swope. Comedian and former Daily Show correspondent Wyatt Cenac will present the film as part of “The Black Cinema Is…” series at South Shore’s Black Cinema House. Hailed by one critic at the time of its release as “vicious and vile... the most offensive film I’ve ever seen,” Downey’s acidic low-budget masterwork chronicles Swope’s overhaul of a fictional Madison Avenue ad agency. With deft force, Swope transforms the buttoned-up corporate office into “Truth and Soul, Inc.,” a predominantly black operation with an unabashedly liberal agenda. The film’s frenetic energy and biting take on race relations have rocked the boat considerably since its release—Louis C.K., Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, and the Coen Brothers all cite the film as an inspiration for their work. Black Cinema House, 7200 S. Kimbark Ave. Sunday, October 26, 4pm.

Free. RSVP recommended. blackcinemahouse.org. (Olivia Myszkowski)

Finding Fela Throughout the long history of social unrest and political movements, music has often been used as an avenue for activism. The critically-acclaimed documentary Finding Fela, showing for the first time on the South Side of Chicago at the DuSable Museum, follows the life of Nigerian musician Fela Kuti and his fight for the rights of the Nigerian people in the 1970s and 1980s. Kuti was not only a visionary artist, but also an activist and political figure in his own right. As a world-renowned pioneer of the Afrobeat genre, he created a mesmerizing and wildly popular fusion of traditional Ghanaian and Nigerian music with jazz and funk. His unique sound enchanted the world, but it was his dedication to social issues, namely the corrupt methods of military regimes in Nigeria, that commanded the unfavorable attention of his government. His powerful message demonstrated his willingness to cause a little trouble and put himself in danger for the sake of the people he sang to. Finding Fela follows Kuti in his road to musical dominance, his rise to fame, and the discovery of his own unwavering voice amidst an unstable political landscape. DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 E. 56th Pl. Friday, October 17th, 7pm, doors at 6:30pm. $10. dusablemuseum.org (Emiliano Burr di Mauro)

Two Twenty-Seven Get a rare look at 1950s Bronzeville life with Two Twenty-Seven playing at Kennedy-King. The comedy follows housewife Mary Jenson, who tells the tale of herself and her neighbors in a predominantly African-American apartment building as they juggle their interpersonal relationships and the tribulations of everyday life, all while in pursuit of the American dream. After its debut in 1976, the play went on to win the Lorraine Hansberry

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Playwriting Award and was adapted into the NBC sitcom 227. With this production, the play returns to its debut stage at Kennedy-King College, the alma mater of the playwright, Christine Houston; Two Twenty-Seven was inspired by Houston’s childhood growing up at 227 E. 48th St. Kennedy-King College Main Theater, 740 W. 63th St. October 3–24, Friday–Saturday, 7pm. $35 adult, $25 senior, $15 student. (773)752-3955. etacreativearts. org (Kyle Jablon)

the UofC’s “Jazz at the Logan” series. The performance promises to be a musical spectacle as the two daredevil musicians join together onstage. Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. October 24, 7:30pm. $35 general admission, $5 for UofC students. (773)702-ARTS. chicagopresents. uchicago.edu (Teddy Watler)

C.S. Lewis, On Stage

It’s been four years since the WHPK Dusties crew started their Soul Reunion shows, and the party has only gotten cooler. The all-volunteer radio station is hosting yet another Soul Reunion, and this time they’ve managed to recruit some of their most renowned DJs, such as Andy, Gary, King George, and PJ Willis, to host a crowd of Chicago soul artists at Hyde Park Records. These legends will be available to meet and talk with, and the DJs will have a steady stream of soul classics playing all day long. The party wouldn’t be complete without some free food and free CDs, of course, so bring your camera and your friends and enjoy a day of music.Hyde Park Records, 1377 E. 53rd St. October 18. 2pm-8pm. Free. (773)2886588. See Facebook page for details. (Zoe Makoul)

This week, Provision Theater closes its run of C.S. Lewis on Stage, a one-man show in which your grandfather, or someone’s (Brad Armacost), engages the crowd with original biographical content and excerpts from everybody’s childhood. Best known for his allegorical and fiercely popular children’s series, The Chronicles of Narnia, Clive Staples Lewis was also a noted lay theologian who penned multiple well-known Christian treatises. The show comes to Provision just over fifty years after the author’s passing on November 22, 1963. That this was the same day as the death of fellow author Aldous Huxley and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has yet to find its way into any major conspiracy theory.

On stage, though, Lewis is very much alive; Armacost received a 2008 Jeff Nomination for the same role. “We are what we believe we are,” Lewis once wrote. In search of lions and witches and secret lands, into the wardrobe we go. Provision Theater, 1001 W. Roosevelt Rd. Through October 19. Friday and Saturday, 8pm; Sunday, 3pm.

(312)455-0066. provisiontheater.org (Hannah Nyhart)

MUSIC

Cocoa Tea at the Shrine Although reggae virtuoso Cocoa Tea will be performing on Halloween, the socially conscious dancehall star is sure to be more smooth than spooky. One of reggae’s most illustrious and consistent artists, Cocoa Tea is well known for his outspoken style and piercing cultural messages. The concert is part of his “Sunset in Negril” tour, which kicks off on October 22 in the United States and moves to Nigeria and Europe in December. The tour will showcase plenty of new material from Cocoa Tea and the Step by Step Band, including the title track “Sunset In Negril” and a cover of Bob Marley’s “War.” Reggae star Louie Culture and DJs Ringo and Papa G. will also be in attendance, so throw away that costume, grab your dancing shoes, and head on over to the Shrine.

The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. October 31. Doors open at 9pm. $35. Tickets available online or at the door. 21+.

(312)753-5681. theshrinechicago.com. (Zoe Makoul)

Tribute to the Glitter King Lean in closer, tiny dancers—your chance to see the “premier Elton John tribute experience” is right around the corner. A classically trained pianist with a heart for rock n’ roll, Brian Harris has made a name for himself as Simply Elton, a tribute act that boasts covers of 110 of the Rocket Man’s biggest hits. Simply Elton will take the stage at Reggie’s for an “intimate solo performance” of the 1974 album Caribou, featuring enduring classics “The Bitch is Back,” “Pinky,” and “Pinball Wizard.” Get your feathers and white-rimmed shades ready, blue jean babies, LA ladies, Mona Lisas, Mad Hatters, all. As Sir Elton would say, “It’s me that you need” (or someone who looks and sounds sort of similar). Reggies Rock Club, 2105 S. State St. October 19, 7pm show, doors at 6. $10.

21+. (312)949-0120. reggieslive.com (Olivia Myszkowski)

Regina Carter Quintet at Logan Make no mistake—Regina Carter isn’t your average violinist. She’s drawn her virtuosic and imaginative music from creative sources as varied as the blues history of Detroit, the traditional folklore of the South, and the rhythmic culture of the African Diaspora. Carter’s technically dazzling and emotionally articulate performances have been recognized for exploring the artistic confluence responsible for American music-making.

This MacArthur Genius Grant recipient has been hailed as “the foremost jazz violinist of her generation.” Her quintet will be joined by Edmar Castaneda, acclaimed Colombian harpist and composer, for an installment of

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“Prince” Billy, but Oldham’s former work under the alias Palace Music holds up just as well, especially the Steve Albini-produced Viva Last Blues. Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport St. October 31, 8:30pm. $25-35 advance, $32-42 at door. (312)526-3851. thaliahallchicago.com (Austin Brown)

Chicago Soul Reunion

The Ready Set at Reggies Jordan Witzigreuter, an alternative-pop singer hailing from Fort Wayne, provides the vocals, instrumentals, and everything else as the sole member of the indie act The Ready Set. After creating the “band” in his basement, Witzigreuter was signed to Pete Wentz’s label Decaydance Records before moving to Razor and Tie Records. Since its creation in 2007, The Ready Set has released three studio albums and four EPs, the latest being The Bad & The Better. A mainstay on the Vans Warped Tour stage, The Ready Set combines a variety of influences into a diverse sound and has been praised by Spin Magazine for its “pop-punk style soaring choruses, smooth R&B-style passages, and quick-fire sing-rap verses.” Catch Witzigreuter on the South Side for a free in-store performance before he heads to the West Loop for a show at Bottom Lounge with Metro Station and The Downtown Fiction. Reggies, 2105 S. State St. October 26, 2pm. Free. All ages. (312)949-0120. reggieslive.com (Shelby Gonzales)

Bonnie “Prince” Billy

Best known for his 1999 song “I See a Darkness” and its subsequent Johnny Cash cover, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, or Will Oldham, makes folk music that’s thematically more appropriate for the nihilism-tinged post-punk of the twenty-first century than the idealistic values and up-tempo atmosphere of the 1960s. Relying in his best moments on both his fragile, world-wearied voice and a spare instrumental backing, Oldham’s oeuvre exposes a long-neglected avenue for a traditionally masculine figure in the world of indie rock, engaging in the genre’s trademark self-examination without being overly introverted. Most publications will steer new listeners towards I See a Darkness for an introduction to Bonnie

VISUAL ARTS

Pocket Guide to Hell: Complimentarity The latest in the “Pocket Guide to Hell” series of Chicago history tours and lectures led by the Smart Museum of Art, “Complimentarity” focuses on the UofC’s role in the Atomic Age. Thursday’s one-hour tour covers various sites of significance around the school’s campus: highlights include an elm tree that Enrico Fermi sat under and the site of Chicago Pile-1, the first artificial nuclear reactor. During the war, these sites were highly classified, and they’re still easy to miss today. But now, you can engage with the stories of some of the twentieth century’s great scientific minds working to refine a new source of energy that would later become weapons of mass destruction. The Museum will also host an “Objective/Subjective” discussion that connects the tour’s contents to works in the Museum’s collection. Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. Tour October 16, 6pm, discussion October 17, noon. Free. (773)702-0200. smartmuseum.uchicago.edu (Julie Wu)

ARCHIVE Mexico City is home to a substantial artistic and literary heritage. From Frida Kahlo to Octavio Paz, the city’s artists have revolutionized various forms of expression in Latin America and across the globe. On Friday, October 18, creations from this cultural hub and from Chicago will be on display at the Co-Prosperity Sphere in Bridgeport. As the finale of the Lit & Luz Festival, the exhibition “ARCHIVE: A Live Magazine Show Extravaganza” will integrate visual and literary media and explore the relationships of art and city to history and place with performances shaping a live issue of MAKE Literary Magazine. Artists involved include widely-acclaimed and prize-winning novelist Álvaro Enrique to the anthologized poet Valerie Mejer to Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh, among others. Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3221 S. Morgan St. October 18, 7pm. $15 ($50 VIP ticket).

21+. (773)837-0145. coprosperity.org (Max Bloom)

18th Street Pilsen Open Studios Interested in art, but don’t want to limit yourself to just one gallery? Then go to the eleventh annual 18th Street Pilsen Open Studios festival. Pilsen Open Studios is an art showcase for a variety of artists working in Pilsen. Selections include paintings, drawings, prints, photography, mixed media, sculptures, and performance

WHPK Rock Charts

WHPK 88.5 FM is a nonprofit community radio station at the University of Chicago. Once a week the station’s music directors collect a book of playlist logs from their Rock-format DJs, tally up the plays of albums added within the last few months, and rank them according to popularity that week.

Compiled by Andrew Fialkowski and Dylan West

Artist / Album / Record Label 1.Pen Test / Biology / Moniker 2. Animal Lover / Guilt / Learning Curve 3. White Lung / Deep Fantasy / Domino 4. Davidians / Davidians EP / Deranged 5. Various Artists / Bitter Cold Compilation / Diseased Audio 6. Nine of Swords / I Can’t Stand My Own Face / Self-Released 7. Spider Bags / Frozen Letter / Merge 8. Apache Dropout / Heavy Window / Magnetic South 9. Marcelus / Shine / Tresor 10. Saturn / Ascending (Live in Space) / Rise Above 11. Halfsleep / Opaque / Self-Released 12. David Thomas Broughton and the Juice Vocal Ensemble / Sliding the Same Way / Song, by Toad 13. Space Afrika / Above the Concrete/Below the Concrete / Where to Now? 14. Los Crudos / Cobardes [Rerelease] / La Vida Es Un Mus 15. Black Anvil / Pale Death / Relapse

ARTS CALENDAR art. The focus of the event will be the studio as the “place for production,” so the featured artists will be opening up their work spaces to the public, allowing viewers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of art-making. All fi fty-plus artists either live or work in Pilsen. Neighborhood cafés will also be participating in the event, showcasing art for Pilsen-connected artists who don’t have their own studios. Also offered are a paid mural tour and a paid van tour of the open studios.Colibri Studio/Gallery, 2032 W. 18th St. October 18, noon-8pm; October 19, noon6pm. Free. (312)545-8579. facebook.com/PilsenOpenStudios (Kyle Jablon)

Borderlines We tend to view art as the embodiment of free expression and creativity. It challenges others’ perceptions by pushing the boundaries of the physical world through aesthetic representation. With this conception of art as something fundamentally unconstrained, it’s often easy to forget that artists face limitations surrounding the act of creation. “Borderlines,” an exhibit opening this week, explores the physical and psychological boundaries of art and “the borderlines that artists place on themselves.”

The purpose of the exhibit is to invite viewers to consider not only the artists’ borderlines, but also to ponder their own personal borderlines. “Borderlines” also celebrates the 10-year anniversary of 33 Contemporary, a fi ne arts gallery in Bridgeport. 33 Contemporary Gallery, Zhou B. Art Center, 1029 W. 35 St. Opening Reception, October 17, 7pm-10pm. Th rough November 15. Monday-Saturday, 10am-5pm. Free. (708)837-4534. 33collective.com (Chloe Hadavas)

Black Eutopia William McKinley’s barber George Meyer was active in

the Republican Party. Novelist and playwright Zora Neale Hurston worked in a barbershop during her college years. From the black-staffed, white-clientele-only shops of the late nineteenth century to the social and political hubs of the early twentieth century, barbershops have helped shape and defi ne black history. For these reasons, Black Eutopia, an interdisciplinary event exploring the role of art in the black community, is set in a barbershop.

The highlight of the six-hour event is a discussion led by artists from various backgrounds—visual art, music, arts education, and art therapy. They will cover topics like the relationship between art and labor, portrayals of black bodies by non-black artists, and art outside traditional gallery spaces. In addition, there will be musical performances, hair styling, and pieces of visual art on display. Carter’s Barber Shop, 3620 W. Cermak Rd. October 24, 1pm-7pm. $5. (312)600-8716. chicagoartistsmonth.org (Julie Wu)

If They Mated For years, late night comedian Conan O’Brien has been eliciting tolerant chuckles by showing audiences two photos of celebrities believed to be dating, and then displaying a hideous photo of what their offspring would look like if they mated. Curator Zachary Harvey has taken this act as the inspiration for a new show at livework space The Honey Hole, opening October 17. “If They Mated” showcases the work of fi fteen artists invited to create an offspring of any sort by combining two items. The results employ a variety of media, including drawing, sculpture, and photography—one piece, for example, features a Little Caesar’s bag placed on top of a pair of shoes. The Honey Hole, 1656 S. Th roop St. October 17, 7pm-10pm. Free. (309)657-5635. facebook.com/TheHoneyHoleChicago (Olivia Myszkowski)

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OCTOBER 15, 2014