2 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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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.
For Mike Brown
Had Michael Brown survived the summer, Monday, November 24, would have been a calm, snowy night. It wasn’t. It was a night on which the people of Chicago gathered in solidarity with the people of Ferguson, and made clear that a fundamental problem demands radical justice. An indictment of one man would not have been sufficient. At 6:30pm, a crowd began to gather outside the headquarters of the Chicago Police Department, at 35th and Michigan, where at least a dozen officers stood guard. The decision of the Michael Brown case was not expected until 8pm, but there was more than enough to talk about in the meantime. “It’s important for us, in this country, to understand how many people have been targeted by the state on a regular basis,” Mariame Kaba, one of the organizers of the Chicago event, explained to the crowd. Protestors were a mix of old and young. One older woman pushed past me to ensure her sign would be seen from the road. And, after a few scattered chants of “all lives matter,” We Charge Genocide
Editor-in-Chief Bea Malsky Managing Editor Hannah Nyhart Deputy Editors John Gamino, Meaghan Murphy Politics Editors Osita Nwanevu, Rachel Schastok Education Editor Bess Cohen Music Editor Jake Bittle Stage & Screen Olivia Stovicek Editor Web Editor Sarah Claypoole Contributing Editors Maha Ahmed, Lucia Ahrensdorf, Emma Collins, Lauren Gurley Photo Editor Illustration Editor Layout Editors
Luke White Ellie Mejia Adam Thorp, Baci Weiler
Senior Writers Jack Nuelle, Stephen Urchick Staff Writers Olivia Adams, Christian Belanger, Austin Brown, Amelia Dmowska, Mark Hassenfratz, Maira Khwaja, Emily Lipstein, Jamison Pfeifer, Wednesday Quansah, Kari Wei, Arman Sayani Staff Photographers Camden Bauchner, Juliet Eldred, Kiran Misra, Siddhesh Mukerji Staff Illustrators Lexi Drexelius, Wei Yi Ow, Hanna Petroski, Amber Sollenberger
luke white
continued on page 17
IN THIS ISSUE
Editorial Interns
Denise Parker, Clyde Schwab
open forum, soon
kinosonik
Business Manager
Harry Backlund
It’s a hearty burst of noise, one the tavern last heard fifty years ago. peter xu...4
Later on in the clip, a weary-looking man appears, adjusting the reels. The circles seem more alive.
“Isolation and disconnection and trauma—these things fuel violence.” julia aizuss...14
the case for ta-nehisi coates
noise before music
remembering jane byrne
It is a lazy abdication of responsibility to pretend that all problems can be solved simply through self-improvement. christian belanger...5
“When I’m having my fun, I wait for the heavens to strike me down.” bea malsky and jean cochrane...9
“It’s a basic rule of Chicago politics: clear the snow, clear the snow.” mari cohen...15
toward self-determination
a liberating force
art in all dimensions
“I have had dirt kicked in my face, I have been stabbed everywhere except the bottom of my feet.” maha ahmed...6
“If you don’t help someone, you in trouble yourself.” emeline posner...13
“I had never seen such a machine. The rest of the room and I were unable to turn away for too long.” sammie spector...16
The paper is produced by an all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city. We distribute each Wednesday in the fall, winter, and spring, with breaks during April and December. Over the summer we publish monthly. Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to: South Side Weekly 1212 E. 59th Street Ida Noyes Hall #030 Chicago, IL 60637 For advertising inquiries, contact: (773)234-5388 or advertising@southsideweekly Read our stories online at southsideweekly.com
Cover art by Jean Cochrane, words by Bea Malsky. Story continued on page 9.
#1
lucia ahrensdorf...8
humanity incarcerated
DEVELOPMENT
Open Forum, Soon The slow revival of 43rd Street BY PETER XU
Y
ou understand the name’s grandeur when you see it: the stark lines that set it off from the sky, the expansive brick façade suggesting its enormous mass. The Forum lies on the corner of 43rd and Calumet Street, just east of the Green Line, in the heart of Bronzeville. Its second level is Forum Hall, the oldest hardwood floor ballroom in Chicago, dating to 1897—before Bronzeville became an iconic black commercial hub. Each of the Forum’s identities traces out the rise and decline of what bright city posters in the surrounding area refer to as the “historic Black Metropolis.” The building has been a political rally hall, a jazz giants’ stomping ground, and a civil rights meeting place. More recently, it has been a crumbling ruin, its three arched front windows empty. In 2011, a local development company called Urban Juncture purchased the building and began making improvements. Vinyl depictions of Bronzeville’s artists were hung over the hall windows, with fabled jazzman Nat King Cole front and center. The interior was cleared out, and over the past three years, extensive structural renovations have been made. “Before, when it rained, the bricks would come raining down onto the sidewalk,” recalls Bernard Loyd, the founder of Urban Juncture. “Literally raining.” The vital structural repairs and cleanup to make the Forum presentable finished only recently. The rooms aren’t yet ready for commercial opening, and the side annexes still need additional structural work. But the Forum began hosting neighborhood events for the first time this past spring before closing down for winter—marking its first season as a cultural destination in decades. In October, Urban Juncture even opened Forum Hall to the public as part of the Open House Chicago series. Over 1,100 people attended, wandering through the time-battered but still-recognizable chamber. It was the first time any part of the Forum has been gener4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
ally accessible in five years, and the first time Forum Hall had been open in many times as long. “Before that, the last time I was in there was probably the sixties,” reflects Sidney, a man who lives one block north of the Forum. Forum Hall’s reopening is years off, but right now Loyd and his team are focusing on a new Forum Café on the ground level, slated for reopening during the latter half of 2015. The café will bring the first consistent signs of life back into the building, and Loyd
says, laughing suddenly. It’s a hearty burst of noise, one the tavern last heard fifty years ago. Bernard Loyd is at home talking about his work in the dim interior of Bronzeville Cookin’, a restaurant and produce market and another of Urban Juncture’s projects. Fragments of edifice litter the poured concrete floor, and a layer of brick dust covers everything. It’s difficult to tell how much of the grey in Loyd’s workman-like outfit is from the dust. The sign on the door reads
The greater part of the main building still needs renovation, but right now Loyd and his team are focusing on a new Forum Café on the ground level, slated for reopening during the latter half of 2015. hopes to draw more retailers from around the community. The lingering question is whether anyone will come. “People will remember. They’ll come,” says Sidney. But his expression turns dour. “I don’t know how they’ll make money, though. People around here, they don’t have money. They’re building new housing, but it’s all Section 8. The folks coming in, they don’t have money either.” Later, Loyd gives Sidney a tour of the darkened ground floor. Loyd’s flashlight catches a faded Red House sign, and little halos of light pool on the old tavern’s marker. “I had some real good times in here,” Sidney
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“GUARD DOGS ON DUTY—Survivors will be prosecuted”—a reminder that outside, Bronzeville is still far fallen from its heyday. Loyd lives two blocks east of the Forum and has walked past it almost every day in his twenty-odd years of residence. He first tried to purchase the building twelve years ago, but the owner at the time viewed it as his retirement property and was asking an exorbitant price. “At the same time, he was not maintaining the building,” adds Loyd. “The corner building has a peaked roof, but the annexes have flat roofs, and those roofs accumulated
water and really started deteriorating.” The raindrops ran through the mortar and the bricks started raining along with them, and the block club became concerned. They prompted 3rd Ward Alderman Pat Dowell to have it scheduled for emergency demolition in the spring of 2011. Harold Lucas, proprietor of the Bronzeville Visitor Information Center and, as Loyd puts it, one of the neighborhood’s “grand old wise men,” pled at a community meeting for someone to save the building. Loyd called the owner one more time. “And now he was motivated,” he says, smiling. After the purchase, Urban Juncture contractors immediately began repairing the dangerous portions as mandated by the city. It became necessary to clear out mountains of debris, accumulated over the decades, that filled twenty-five thirty-yard trash containers. The biggest hurdle, however, was capital. Loyd projects the total final cost of the project to be around $25 million. To date, all of the funds have come directly from Urban Juncture. “Access to capital is extraordinarily difficult to secure in the South Side,” Loyd says, drawing out the syllables of “extraordinarily.” “Banks are less than interested.” Public grants help, but they require navigating city bureaucracy. The Forum Café was originally planned to open this year, but Urban Juncture lost a Small Business Improvement Fund grant from Chicago when their permit was denied. “Apparently, the western annex, which has housed retail for a hundred years, wasn’t zoned for retail,” says Loyd drily. On the other hand, a promising avenue is the city’s Request for Proposal for development along 43rd Street, a program calling for independent developers to submit their plans for potential city backing. Loyd is planning a proposal based on the Council Metropolitan Agency for Planning’s idea to build a revived 43rd Street around the arts, carving
REPARATIONS
a niche distinct from neighboring 47th and 51st Streets. Trez Pugh III, the proprietor of Sip & Savor Café on 43rd and Forrestville, is optimistic about the street’s economic prospects. “When I got here in 2005, I was the first one here,” he says distractedly, preparing for an event in his bustling joint. “No one thought they could do business. It was all empty lots and tumbleweeds.” In 2005, Pugh’s café was the only non-liquor or convenience store retailer on the street. Now, he has two neighbors: Ain’t She Sweet Café, a competitor, and Agriculture, an upscale clothing boutique. Adding the Forum Café will bring 43rd Street one step closer to the commercial corridor it once was. “Bernard’s actually asked me to work with him many times, but I’m too busy with my own shop,” Pugh says. Loyd likes his chances as well. “We’re right next to the CTA,” he points out. “Prime territory.” The Forum is the linchpin of the street: the only intact historical building on its block, and a former major art center. As it did forty years ago, the first floor will eventually house smaller retailers, with performances recalling those hosted at the old Bronzeville cafés. Then will come the reopening of Forum Hall as the major artistic attraction it once was. Some of that old magic has returned already. All the events at the Forum in the past year have featured appearances by Bronzeville artists, and Loyd has enlisted several to hold “office hours” outside the Forum during the day, displaying and explaining their work to passersby. The two figures whose posters flank Nat King Cole aren’t his contemporaries— they’re modern jazz singer Maggie Brown and “Discopoet” Khari B., both Bronzeville natives. They stand impressively in the arched windows of Forum Hall, suggesting the future with lips slightly parted, microphones in hand.
The Case for Ta-Nehisi Coates BY CHRISTIAN BELANGER
julie wu
I
f the Atlantic writer and editor Ta-Nehisi Coates had knowledge of the fraught racial climate at the University of Chicago—where minority students have challenged campus administrators to address instances of racial intolerance—before his appearance at the school last Thursday, Coates did not betray it. Apart from a digression urging black students to attend historically black colleges and universities like his alma mater Howard University (“so you don’t always feel a need to defend yourself ”), he stuck firmly to the stated purpose of his visit: discussing his now-famous feature in June’s issue of the Atlantic, “The Case for Reparations.” In that piece, Coates digs deeply into the historical record of the United States to explain why the notion of reparations for African Americans deserves, at the very least, a fair hearing. Notably, he includes an in-depth exploration of discriminatory housing policies in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood around the middle of the twentieth century as an illustration of how racism continued to influence public policy and threaten the livelihoods of African Americans after the end of slavery and Jim Crow. In a video shown at the talk, a series of older interviewees explained the difficulties they faced after signing predatory contracts created by white realtors attempting to capitalize on black families fleeing the anarchic conditions they faced in the South at the time. Clyde Ross and Jack MacNamara, two of the activists
who spearheaded efforts to combat these unfair mortgages, were in the hall at International House for Coates’s talk, and received a standing ovation. The story of Clyde Ross and his work with the Contract Buyers League is certainly inspirational. But Coates was quick to point out that many black people did lose their homes in North Lawndale. “The people in the video are exceptional people, but the vast majority are ordinary,” Coates said. “The war brought to them was fundamentally unjust.” There is a recurring idea in Coates’s writing that African-American people growing up are forced to be “twice as good” as white people, and that expecting this superhuman effort from every member of a race is deeply unfair. For that reason, he is also not afraid to counter the rhetoric that sometimes comes out of the black community, and often the American mainstream, that African Americans should work to pull themselves up by their bootstraps (a phrase—and this makes sense if you think about it—that was originally intended to convey something absurdly impossible to do). Coates’s underlying point, of course, is that at the level of political decision-making, it is a lazy abdication of responsibility to pretend that all problems can be solved simply through self-improvement. While Coates is richly steeped in the history of reparations, he is also acutely aware of his own boundaries as a journalist. In writing the piece, and recounting
its creation here, he makes it clear that he is, in some sense, an interloper, someone whose work will hopefully bring more attention to a cause that others have worked on for much longer than he. Instead of outlining a specific program of reparations, Coates urged the audience to ask their representatives to vote for HR 40, a bill introduced into Congress by Representative John Conyers every session since 1989, that calls for a committee to study reparations. Though Coates’s writing is often frustrated, he is laid back in person. Throughout the talk, he joked around with the moderator, Atlantic editor-in-chief James Bennet (whose soporific voice, incidentally, is more soothing than a cup of chamomile). One particularly funny anecdote came as Coates recounted how, as a kid, he always conceived the proverbially oppressive “white man” that his elders would talk about as a single person—more specifically, Ronald Reagan. Coates peppered his comments with references to books and historical figures such as Queen Nzinga, additions that made clear exactly how well-read he is within the particular African American tradition on which he writes so compellingly. In many ways, Coates may be proof that there remains room to specialize and delve into issues at beautiful length even within a journalistic world that so often seems to thrive on hyperactivity and short sound bites.
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Toward Self-Determination An interview with trans activist Monica James
BY MAHA AHMED
W
ith her work existing at the intersection of prison abolition and transgender rights, Monica James visited Geneva this month to address the United Nations Committee Against Torture on the criminalization of transgender women of color. There, she spoke alongside members of the Transformative Justice Law Project (TJLP) of Illinois, United States Human Rights Network, and the Women’s All Points Bulletin. Her trip was made possible through a crowdsourcing campaign that raised over five thousand dollars. James, herself a transgender woman and activist born and raised on the South and West Sides, works with the TJLP to help low-income and homeless transgender people access fair legal counsel and adequate healthcare. I met with Monica James to discuss her activism, her upbringing, and her trip to Geneva—her first time entering an airplane.
What activist work do you do? I am a prison abolitionist, as well as [an activist] working with gender self-determination and transformative justice law. In prison abolition, what we hope to achieve is to go inside the prison system and empower people who find themselves targeted by police or by the state. That targeting leads to harassment, and [harassment] leads to a verbal altercation, and that verbal altercation has a way of spinning out of control and the trans person is left criminalized for, like, aggravated battery, or criminal transmission of HIV and AIDS because someone may have gotten bitten or scratched. Just by walking trans, they are profiled and targeted based upon their gender. As far as transformative justice, we try to work side-by-side with politicians, lawmakers, state’s attorneys, public defenders, and other private lawyers to [inform] them of the experiences of trans people in a way that better aligns them in their mitigation and litigation for the innocence of a trans defendant or victim. Once you get inside and empower a person with the skills and tools that they need to better understand society, better understand their rights, their dignity is rebuilt. 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
In gender self-determination, our goal is to affirm everyone in their desired gender expression. We have a “Name Change Mobilization” every last Friday of the month. It’s a lengthy process, but so far we have had great success with assisting trans-identified individuals as well as gender-nonconforming individuals with a name change that aligns with their gender expression. In doing so, this allows them to not run into so many barriers when it comes to entering mainstream society in search of housing, access to healthcare, employment, as well as providing a safe passage for them. Name change also leads to gender marker change for some. We also provide an outlet toward doctors who are trans-inclusive and trans-affirming, and have great experience with gender hormone replacement therapy, which is part of transitioning.
out, I was kicked out of high school. From there, I found myself working in the sex trade, and from working in the sex trade I was introduced to drugs, and from being introduced to drugs, I had to find a means to support that drug habit. And retail theft became part of my means of survival. I would go into the stores and steal high-end marketed clothing and sell that clothing to various people for half the ticket price. That was part of my living.
How have your own experiences led you to your activist work?
And one day in August of 2007, I was committing a retail theft, and there was an off-duty police officer in the store. I was at a store located in the heart of Boystown and this off-duty police officer approached me, and insisted that I return back to the store. I was reluctant to turn back to the store, so he slung me out in the middle of the streets. And from there, he attacked me in the middle of the streets with a gun. He literally beat me with the butt of his gun.
In 2007, I was a part of the black market as a trans woman of color coming from a poor legacy, a legacy of poverty. I was not equipped with the tools necessary for me to move ahead in society. My gender presented different barriers for me, which denied me access into mainstream society as early as my senior year in high school—I came
From there, it was an all-out fight. Sometimes I like to think of it as an all-out brawl, because it lasted more than thirty minutes. In that altercation, there was a gun shot that went off…I was faced with the possibility of being criminalized for twenty to eighty years for attempted murder of an off-duty police officer, aggravated battery,
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discharge of a firearm, some kind of bodily harm to a police officer. The charges just went on and on and on. The fact that I was attacked by this police officer led people in organizations such as the TJLP to believe that I was profiled, and had I not been a woman of color, had I not been a transgender woman that was identified as [such], I probably would not have had that experience. They felt the need to come to my side and advocate with me and in doing so, they gave me the strength to stand up and fight for my rights. If you’re innocent, there shouldn’t be a problem with you getting up and telling your story. There shouldn’t be a problem with you feeling comfortable with sharing your experience. People started to funnel me in different works, different pieces—academic pieces. Things based on the Black Power movement, with people like Assata [Shakur], Angela Davis, Huey Newton. One day I received a book by Assata, and her story just evoked a sense of dignity and pride in me, and I found the strength to stand up and go to trial. We wasn’t very successful with that trial, and one of the reasons why we wasn’t successful was because I was trans, and my whole defense team was gender-vari-
ACTIVISM
ant-identified. Because of that, the state’s attorney said to the jury, “How does this person ever expect us to believe anything they say, if they’re already presenting us with a lie? We know that they were born one gender, and here they are representing another gender. And for that, I ask that you find these people capable of lying.” And with that testimony—you know, I have had dirt kicked in my face, I have been stabbed everywhere except the bottom of my feet—I looked over at the faces of the people who were supporting me, and they were deeply hurt by that. They were wounded. That right there made me say, “You know what, I’ll defy everything that you said about us.” And in doing that, I rebuilt my life. I restructured my life. And now today, I know the struggles the people we serve are going through. I can see those struggles, because in my forty-three years of living, I’ve had every single one of those struggles, if not five times over, because of my long, extended period in that underground world. And so getting out and telling my story with people who are still in the grips of it is very therapeutic for me. How do you think your identity and identity politics influence the way you see the world? My identity and my politics influence me to see the world the way that I do because I actually lived it. I know what it’s like to have been kicked out of school because I was identified as queer, or trans. I know what it’s like to be assaulted by peers because I was queer. I know what it’s like to have my resume or job application balled up because I identified as queer. I know what it’s like to go and be housed in a prison of 1,499 men and be the only trans woman there. At the end of the day, police presence—a strong police presence—is nothing but a militia. They’re creating all this ruckus in our lives so that we can never come together and form strong, safe communities without
being policed and controlled by an agency of militants. When they come, they come with hostility. They come with the intent of controlling. And in controlling, there’s a lot of aggression that has to be displayed, and some of that aggression is false, because you find out that behind that uniform is a great person. And a great person can’t be that great person when they’re amongst that whole multitude. And the “serve and protect” aspects of it are so thrown out the window that society today is lawless. A moment without the fight is a moment in, like, heaven. It’s like a shopping spree.
friends that I had met and on Fridays and Saturdays we would get together and dress up, and we would go out. And by the time the school year started back, I was hooked. I felt free, I felt liberated. I took it to school and I was kicked out of school my senior year, that first day. And it was one of the most devastating blows that I ever felt. Because in that moment I realized that I didn’t belong, and now I needed to find a place where I belonged. And that place that I found where I belonged was with an older community that had been beaten, worn, rejected, alienated, ostracized, and criticized for who they are.
It took me years. For years and years and years, I was walking in a lie, you know. I was living a lie. It was visible that I was queer or had the possibility of being queer, but out of fear I would always reject it. Like, “I know I’m not queer, I know I’m not gay. I’m just really nice.” But all in all, I knew that I was gay and I was gay. So...yeah, I had my experience. My senior year, a period during my summer vacation, I just started going out with different
And so in my address to the UN, I talked about passability. Passability is when a trans person or a gender nonconforming person or a queer-identified person is able to walk into mainstream society without being identified as such. In our community, we call it clocked. It’s when a person can walk in society without being clocked. I talked about prison abolition, how trans women of color are profiled and targeted by law enforcement, by the state, how they are victims but [portrayed] to be the villains. I talked about criminalization, how they are forced into stints of isolation, and how isolation brings about deterioration of a human being, how isolation brings about suicide ideations. And it was highlighted by the United Nations that, yes, anything beyond fifty days of isolation, you have killed that human being. Once you kill that human being, they have nothing left.
I know what it’s like to have my resume or job application balled up because I identified as queer. I know what it’s like to go and be housed in a prison of 1,499 men and be the only trans woman there. Growing up, what was your process of coming to terms with your identity?
create space for others to be able to come forth and share their stories, and for others to find their safe space.
I found myself in a way that I became proud of who I am. That feels good to me. I don’t need surgeries to solidify who I am. What were you doing in Geneva? I’ve never had a feeling that was close to the experience that I felt in Geneva. For that moment in Geneva, I knew that the lights were on me, but I was totally selfless the whole time that I was in that light. And I made it a point to be selfless, because I felt like I had been blessed with so many opportunities that it was time for me to
So I talked about all those things and how they lead into things like homelessness, because we now know the LGBTQ community is leading the numbers in so many casualties. A few trans women had been there prior to my visit there, and they wasn’t successful. I learned that for fifteen years they had been trying to get trans issues on the table, and just when I showed up was when we got these issues on the table, so I was really elated by that. There was a sense of power that came out of that situation, as a woman that came from the trenches of the trenches, had this long history of negative light shined upon her... and to be standing in front of a committee of such power, and having their utmost respect and attention for what I had to say, it was empowering. It was empowering because I never, in a whole million years, dreamed that I would be speaking at the United Nations. And then not only just speaking, but having real success.
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MIXED MEDIA
Kinosonik #1
An immersive experience of words, images, and sound BY LUCIA AHRENSDORF
T
he only source of light in the room is the soft, creamy glow of the desk lamps illuminating the artists’ worktables. Joseph Clayton Mills, his glasses white from the reflected light, leans over his serpentine cables and intricate sound-making apparatuses on the left. Facing him on the right side, Marvin Tate leans back, shadowy, his red beanie floating in the darkness, behind a desk with a large book and a microphone. A blank square screen hangs in the space between them. This is Kinosonik #1, a performance sponsored by three major Chicago arts organizations: Black Cinema House, Experimental Sound Studio, and Chicago Film Archives. A pair of artists were chosen to create a soundtrack to a series of short, diverse shorts extracted from the immense Chicago Film Archives. In the weeks leading up to the performance, the musicians watched and rewatched the shorts, developing a relationship with the material. The performance itself is improvised, but given the time spent with the films, the artists have ample opportunity to create a framework for themselves. The project was inspired by smaller collaborations between Experimental Sound System and Black Cinema House last year. Lou Mallozzi, the executive director of ESS, was in charge of selecting artists for the project, and Penny Duff, the program manager for Rebuild Foundation, worked with Chicago Film Archives to provide footage. Mallozzi says the project involved a high degree of trust among the three arts initiatives. The organizations did provided the different parts and allowed everything to come together organically. The projected screen lights up with spinning bronze-colored movie reels. The hypnotic pinwheels are shot in groups, individually, and from different angles. Dad, Tate whispers unexpectedly, while Mills paints the background of the soundscape with dulled moans. Later on in the clip, a 8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
weary-looking man appears, adjusting the reels. The circles seem more alive. After a clip of a man losing himself in swarming city crowds comes a short from JoAnn Elam, an experimental filmmaker. Bare country landscapes are obstructed by a dark overlay. Holes in the overlay bounce around the screen, continuously changing what the audience sees. Tate mutters al-
The next clip, a short film by Kenji Kanesaka, though very fragmented, is the first to have a discernible storyline. Amid mania of Christian protesters, mannequin body parts in trash cans, cars, and advertising posters, a young African-American boy runs up a bombed-out apartment building with a jug of milk. People stop him on the street, the jug spills, he throws
A young African-American boy runs up a bombed-out apartment building with a jug of milk. People stop him on the street, the jug spills, he throws the jug—the sequences appear out of order. most unintelligibly, his voice oscillating from throaty robot to soulful crooning. The screen switches to shots of CTA platforms and close-ups of people gazing out of the train windows, unaware they are being watched. As the train speeds up, Tate and Mills stop slow-dancing and start doing the Charleston. “A perfect little snow globe…imagine what a world this would be, if I was your rainbow,” Tate yells into his microphone. Mill’s mellow, ambient music becomes feverish, grating beats. Then, an abstract explosion of brushstrokes and scratches cause Mill’s side of the room to come alive with dings, whirring, and other machine noises.
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the jug—the sequences appear out of order. From time to time, Tate comes in against the post-apocalyptic images of a none-too-distant past. “Ain’t no role models in the hood.” During the showing it is difficult to pay equal attention to Tate’s voice, Mills’s sound landscapes, and the video. Some segments seemed to highlight one medium more than the others, but often I found myself allowing my focus to roam from across them. It is easy to imagine each viewer having a radically different experience of the performance. After the presentation, Mills and Tate sat down with Mallozzi to discuss
their collaboration and to answer questions from the audience. “Joe and I met at The Hideout one night,” Tate recounts. “Joe’s friend introduced us. Quiet guys always like me.” Mills reminisces about the early stages of their relationship: “In our second meeting, he hands me his recorder that he’d been carrying around for years, just recording snippets of poems he’s working on, and conversations with his wife, and jokes, kids fighting. Totally random stuff. So he handed it to me and said, ‘This is my mind, let’s do this.’ It was great; it was trusting to let me see that.” Despite their different backgrounds, ages, and life experiences, their personalities overlap. “We have the same interests; we’re both really eclectic in the way we work,” Mills says. “And we’re both really willing to try things we haven’t done before, so we just started working together.” Given the nature of the project, the two artists had to develop a personal relationship to the clips. Many of Tate’s contributions were stream-of-consciousness musings and anecdotes, sparked by the films. He says, “Upon seeing those shorts, I recalled those types of movies, in fact I see my old neighborhood in there. There was that familiarity coming into it. I know this soundtrack. I knew what I wanted to bring to it.” Though Mills was in the foreground less frequently than the video and Tate, he had the important task of marrying the two. He gave structure to Tate’s beautiful fragments, or as he puts it, “In performance, I’ll interrupt Marvin with his own thoughts.” Kinosonik #2 will be held on Sunday, December 7 at Black Cinema House, 7200 S. Kimbark Ave. See blackcinemahouse.org for more information.
TRAVIS
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TRAVIS
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TRAVIS
VISUAL ARTS
A Liberating Force “Prison & Black Arts Movement” at SSCAC
BY EMELINE POSNER
B
ehind a table in the softly lit main room of the South Side Community Art Center sat a panel of five artists. They had come together at the request of the Prison+Neighborhood Arts Program (P+NAP) to discuss the influence of the Black Arts Movement in Chicago and its role in providing inmates in Cook County prisons with an arts education. If there was ever a place in Chicago for such a discussion, it was there at the South Side Community Art Center. Opened in 1940 by Dr. Margaret Burroughs, the SSCAC helped innumerable Chicago artists start their careers and helped launch the Black Arts Movement as a whole. Burroughs left a grand legacy in the establishment of the SSCAC and the DuSable Museum, as well as in the years she spent teaching art and writing to inmates of the Stateville Correctional Center, a high-security prison forty miles southwest of Chicago. The artists on the P+NAP panel have similarly established themselves as distinguished leaders within their artistic fields, while also dedicating years to teaching art within the prison system. Today prisons receive little to no government funding for education; when Clinton signed the Crime Bill Act in 1994, all federal and state education grants for inmates were eliminated. The bill allowed for an increase of nearly ten billion in funding for police forces, prisons, and prevention programs, but it effectively deprived inmates of their right to a fundamental part of the democratic ideal: a free education. Useni Perkins, a distinguished Chicago poet and sociologist, began teaching literature in the 1960s in the Cook County Jail and Pontiac Correctional Facility, where he found well-read and politically conscious inmates, some of whom he is still in contact with today. Perkins remarked, “I just don’t think that the community understands that many prisoners hadn’t been convicted, they just couldn’t pay the bond.” But he believes that it falls on the greater community to counter the injustice done by the justice system. “If you don’t help some-
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one, you in trouble yourself.” To Perkins’ left sat Phil Cohran, who came to Chicago in 1953 to study music and went on to make a profound impact on the Black Arts Movement and on Chicago as a whole. “When I first started teaching music at Stateville,” Cohran said, “the guards told me, ‘They don’t know nothing about sensitivity, they don’t know what a harp is.’ But ten years later, my musical technique had spread throughout the prison system.” Cohran’s musical technique didn’t just spread but inspired musical groups both inside and outside of prisons. “My group that I taught at Pontiac was the most advanced group, because I taught them for four years,” said Cohran. “They call themselves the Midstate Heritage Ensemble, and I have at least twelve recordings from them, and I’m gonna publish them,” Cohran proudly stat-
ed. “Some of them might be gone, but they will get the credit they deserve because they sound as good as anybody out there.” Masequa Myers, Executive Director of the SSCAC and acclaimed performer and producer, introduced P+NAP at the beginning of the discussion. She characterized P+NAP as a continuation of the time and effort that Burroughs, Cohran, Perkins, and (though she didn’t elaborate so much on her own contributions) she herself had dedicated to teaching the arts in the prison system. P+NAP is a nonprofit organization co-founded in 2012 by Sarah Ross, and it looks to the exhaustive work of the 1960s as groundwork for the future. It connects teachers of the arts in the Chicago area with inmates in Stateville Prison and holds classes on a semester system, with each class culminating in a final project. The works from
the most recent exhibit, “The Material That Went to Make Me,” were mounted around the walls of the SSCAC’s main gallery. Sarah Ross spoke about the way Stateville was in 1968—long before the damage done by the Crime Bill Act—when 11,000 people attended the fourth annual exhibition outside the Stateville gates, at which 900 pieces of artwork made by inmates were purchased. The exhibition is no longer, and the three GED courses offered today serve only a small percentage of the inmate population, but P+NAP seems to be making clear steps in the direction of a better system. I spoke briefly with Laurie Palmer, a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a teacher for P+NAP, about her hopes for the future. “P+NAP is entirely committed to policy change,” she told me. “The kind of conversation we just had can lead towards legislative change, but legislative change is not by any means the answer. To be linking the people inside the prison and outside, that’s about policy change on both sides.” Though the panelists were less than optimistic about the resolution of the prison system’s discrepancies—the “revolving door” through which the majority of juvenile delinquents ultimately end up incarcerated as adults and the privatization of the prison system—there was an ever-present hope in P+NAP and the power of art. “Art has to reflect a struggle,” Perkins said emphatically. “Art is a liberating force.” When the discussion opened up to the audience members, a woman who worked as a librarian within a Cook County prison was delighted to discover that Cohran had been part of the group that created the library with a donation of several thousand books. Another woman who has worked within the prison system since 1945 introduced herself to Cohran as the mother-inlaw of one of his favorite music students: “My son-in-law can’t get out, but he’s still playing,” she said. Turning back towards the audience with a faint smile on her lips, she added, “and if any of y’all wanna help me, that’d be fine.”
NOVEMBER 26, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13
BOOKS
Humanity, Incarcerated Maya Schenwar releases Locked Down, Locked Out BY JULIA AIZUSS
M
aya Schenwar sat down gingerly. “Can people still see at least the top of my head if I sit down?” she asked. As the audience members in the Seminary Co-op murmured assent, she lifted her chin, peering into the packed crowd that filled every red seat before her and spilled out onto the carpet. “I can see your heads,” she chirped. At last, Schenwar began to read from her new book, Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn’t Work and How We Can Do Better. Schenwar, the editor-in-chief of the independent web publication Truthout, launched Locked Down, Locked Out at the Seminary Co-op last Sunday. The book explores how the prison-industrial complex breaks crucial connections between prisoners and their families and communities, and how that isolation blocks prisoners from true rehabilitation. At the Co-op, Schenwar first read the story of prison activist Barbara Fair to show the ripple effect by which imprisonment impacts prisoners’ families. All seven of Fair’s sons were incarcerated for drug-related convictions; as young African-American males, she says, they were targeted. Fair’s life “quickly molded itself around prison”—visits to distant facilities, expensive phone calls, financial troubles, panic attacks. Although her sons are now free, Fair must still support her youngest son, who spent some of his time in prison in isolation and now lives in a psych ward. It was “crucial,” Schenwar said after reading the excerpt, to see how family members get pulled into the ordeal of prison, and how that usually ends up dissolving the relationship between prisoners and their family. Schenwar’s selection also made clear her favorite mode of writing: argument through anecdote. Although Fair’s story is mingled with
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quotations from researchers and scholars, her personal story is put first. In an interview on Truthout with former organizer and education reformer Bill Ayers, Schenwar said she dislikes how the mainstream discussion of prison reform “often centers on statistics and budgetary arguments and corporations and ideologies—everything but people.” Make no mistake, Schenwar does cite stats. But Locked Down, Locked Out is about humanizing people who should never be dehumanized—it harnesses the power of anecdotes to present a fuller narrative. Her direct presentation of the words and stories of prisoners and activists, replete with novelistic detail, is engaging and informative. They’re also excellent vehicles to deliver memorable and necessary facts and statistics. The news that people visiting state prisoners in Arizona must each pay a one-time twenty-five dollar “background-check fee”—a blow to poor families—is just as striking as the anecdote it’s encased in: a teenager and her grandmother kicked out of their visit because the teenager hugged her incarcerated father and “was accused of being ‘too affectionate’“ with him. What results is not a collage of scattered misfortunes, but a clear portrait of how myriad factors—legal, racial, and socioeconomic discrimination, not to mention sexism, homophobia, and transphobia—collude to entrench a system that keeps isolating and punishing people. Although research often comes to the same conclusions, it can’t do so with the same force—it’s one thing to point to numbers and to say that black people are disproportionately incarcerated, and another to look at what’s actually happening in prisons and communities to show that aggressive incarceration provokes
POLITICS
Remembering Jane Byrne
Exploring the legacy of a Chicago politician and reproduces the very crimes that are used to justify it. “This system is rupturing marginalized communities, constantly and systemically,” Schenwar said, in her interview with Ayers. “Isolation and disconnection and trauma—these things don’t stop violence; they fuel violence.” One story that most effectively illuminates problems with the institution is Schenwar’s own: the book is partly a memoir about her sister, a heroin addict who’s been incarcerated three times. Schenwar is unafraid to depict how easy it is to fall into complicity with the system: in the introduction, when Kayla (a pseudonym) is arrested for the seventh time in six years, Schenwar hangs up on her call from Cook County Jail, frustrated with Kayla’s continual struggles and a little relieved that she at least knows where her sister is. The fraying of this relationship strengthens the book’s points about prison’s pernicious destruction of relationships. If even Schenwar’s middle-class family struggles to maintain connection with a daughter whom prison has repeatedly failed to help, what hope is there for families without the time and money? Kayla appeared in the second excerpt Schenwar read at the Co-op, in which she gives birth to her daughter while incarcerated. Induced labor was scheduled for the prison’s convenience, no relatives could be present, one phone call was allowed, and Kayla was shackled to the hospital bed after the birth. As people hunched forward to listen to Schenwar read, it was hard to dispute the potency of writing about a sister gasping into the phone about a baby she could keep for only thirty-six hours: “I love her, I love her, I love her, and I just want to hold her forever.” Schenwar hadn’t intended to read this section. Kayla herself was supposed
to come to the Co-op to read a poem she’d written, but she was on house arrest and didn’t receive permission to attend—“Because obviously this is a dangerous place,” Schenwar snorted. “Surveillance, home confinement—there are all these different ways the prison nation extends itself beyond just the walls of prison.” The failed reading operated in tandem with the book, a vivid manifestation of the prison and legal systems’ failures. Not everything in the book is bad news; some of it, though thorny, is hopeful. The second half of the book, from which Schenwar chose her last reading, investigates alternatives to prison. The community-based justice methods she advocates eschew the rhetoric of “crime” in favor of “harm,” which is based not on a person’s relationship to the law but their relationship to other people. Schenwar was anxious, though, not to foster easy thinking. “There isn’t one blanket solution to getting out of the prison-industrial complex,” she said. Nor was she afraid during the post-reading questions to be blunt about the realities of reform. When asked whether any activism unique to Illinois could be undertaken, she laughed and collapsed in her chair a little as she said, “I was really hopeful about Illinois, but then we got a very terrible governor.” After stewing more about Pat Quinn’s downfall, Schenwar paused and asked, “Are we done?” Another pause, and she threw her hands in the air: “Oh, right— you should buy my book!” As the crowd’s attention dissolved into chatty energy, a Co-op employee said that the book had sold out. The reading had garnered the largest ever attendance for a Co-op event: a small victory for the humanity of people behind bars.
BY MARI COHEN
T
hough Jane Byrne can claim the title of Chicago’s first and only female mayor, she might be remembered most for defeating the well-oiled Democratic machine in the primary of 1979, something that seemed unthinkable until a blizzard offered her a hand in putting together a coalition dissatisfied with the status quo. Byrne, who died on November 14 at the age of eighty-one, largely fell out of the public eye after her single term as mayor. But her story is too good to be entirely forgotten. Byrne was originally a favored supporter of Mayor Richard J. Daley, and Chicago’s first commissioner of sales, weights, and measures under his administration. But after Daley’s death, she clashed with his successor, Michael Bilandic, and was fired from her position in his office. Once a loyal member of Daley’s Democratic machine, Byrne soon turned around and challenged Bilandic. Bilandic was unconcerned by Byrne’s candidacy until, with the ground still covered from a previous blizzard, nearly twenty inches of snow landed on the city over one weekend in mid-January of 1979, leaving Chicago in disarray. The mayor soon appeared incompetent, continually promising that everything was under control, though this was far from the truth. Byrne capitalized on the outrage, placing the blame for the mishandling of the blizzard squarely on Bilandic’s shoulders. “Jane Byrne just immediately denounced the mayor and pointed out the ludicrous nature of his statements,” said Andrew McFarland, professor of political science at University of Illinois at Chicago. The blizzards also exposed Chicago’s racial segregation. McFarland recalls that
because many cars were stuck, white people living south of 95th Street who did not usually take the CTA began piling onto the “L” trains. By the time the trains reached stops on the South Side, the cars were completely full, and trains sped past black residents waiting on the platforms in the freezing weather. Furthermore, as the Tribune reported in 1979, the CTA, due to equipment shortages, decided to shut down service to several stations on the South and West Sides during rush hour, mostly affecting black communities. This contributed to the dissatisfaction of black voters with the administration. Byrne became an appealing option for voters sick of the old machine, and for those who were tired of their neighborhoods being ignored. By election day, the sun was shining and voters turned out to narrowly lift Byrne over Bilandic in the primary. She won the general election easily. “She appealed to some of those folks who were desperate to find a way to go against the political machine,” says Paul Green, professor of public administration at Roosevelt University. Yet as soon as she was elected, Byrne was quick to turn away from the campaign volunteers who had looked to her as a reformer, and all too eager to attempt reconciliation with machine politicians she had earlier denounced. Her controversial tenure was rocked by turnover in the administration as she continually fired and hired new officials. In an effort to gain white support in the next election, she appointed white members to the Chicago Public School and Chicago Housing Authority boards in the place of black members.
NOVEMBER 26, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15
VISUAL ARTS
Art in All Dimensions "Technologic" at CAD
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BY SAMMIE SPECTOR
alking into the Chicago Art Department (CAD) in Pilsen last weekend, I was greeted by a thrum of activity in the back room of the gallery. Along with the low buzz of visitors munching on pizza came beeps from a strange, boxy machine that held everyone’s attention. The Saturday workshop focused on 3D printing and its uses for artistic endeavors. CAD had hosted workshops over the course of the week as part of their most recent exhibition, “Technologic,” curated by Chuck Przybyl. The day was filled with new realms to be discovered, realms I had nev16 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
er even thought to be curious about. Tom Burtonwood’s 3D printer workshop was the first stop in an exhibit that featured works by numerous other artists who use technology to create. The workshop offered a casual and curious atmosphere, thanks largely to the presence of a large Doberman, a toddler watching movies in the back of the room, and various arts-minded folk eating and staring intently at the printer, which melded plastic together as Burtonwood explained its functions and their significance. The busy noises of the 3D printer provided the
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soundtrack to the workshop. The rest of the room and I were unable to turn away from the machine for too long in case we missed a layer, an addition, a rickety turn of the printed plastic. For a technology so recent and substantial, the printer seemed ancient: 90s-esque in its shape and early 2000s in its bleeps and bops. Burtonwood talked with us about the fundamentals of printing, from powder formation to placing orders for customized prints, as well as its advantages and limits, and what that meant for the future of 3D printers. As the technology has bloomed in popularity, a culture has sprung up around it. In his time away from his own work, Burtonwood writes reviews of printing products for the general community—the pricing and coding details he discussed sailed over my head. When technical difficulties ensued, it was more ironic than frustrating: despite his obvious expertise with a technology still at its coming-of-age, Burtonwood was plagued by the mundane difficulties presented by his Mac computer. During the workshop, I had the opportunity to sneak in a tour of the wider exhibit with the curator, Chuck Przybyl. Stand-out pieces included Harvey Moon’s drawing machine, a contraption that through a combination of calculation and mutation makes its own watercolor works, as well as Nathan Davis’s “Arbor” series, which utilizes mathematical models found within natural phenomena to create neon branches and swirls, similar to tree growth. Burtonwood’s own designs were visible on white and glass shelving. Their plastic shapes looked like crystalline candy floss from far away. As we walked, Przybyl explained what led him to the idea of “Technologic.” He told me the exhibit seemed as if it was meant to be: he dropped into Burtonwood’s 3D printing workshop during his residency at the Art Institute, met other soon-to-be-exhibited artists through his own artistic endeavors, and worked with youth outreach workshops that showcased new technology. Using all these contacts, Pryzbyl pieced together his show. His goal was to showcase a sampling of numerous current technologies, and how artists utilize them to forward their work.
“Honestly, it came down to what I was most interested in,” he said. “I liked what these guys were doing, and how these devices were benefiting their art.” When asked what technological pieces he ruled out as insignificant or inappropriate for “Technologic,” from computer-engineered artistry to software and machinery, Przybyl thought for a moment. “With each piece, I considered if it was exhibiting a technology that empowered the artist to do something that they could not do before. That they could not do without this technological tool. The works in this exhibit are appropriate for our time period…they’re very present.” He tells me that maybe in the next “Technologic” he’ll showcase technology for the future. But for now it’s this precise grounding in the present that is so exciting about “Technologic”; it presents enthusiastic notions about the possibilities that are being created today and the art that is shaping our culture as we speak. Burtonwood and Przybyl both identify as part of the Maker movement, which celebrates technology-based DIY art and science projects and has been primarily driven by MAKE magazine and Maker Faires, which have been occurring throughout the country since the early 2000s. “What’s inspiring is [Maker culture] empowers people with any type of idea to make it reality,” said Przybyl. “We are already making art that could not have been made before this technology was made available.” He points out that we’re looking next into the realities, ironically, of virtual installations and realms. He mentions Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset used for gaming. I mention prosthetics, returning mentally to Burtonwood’s presentation on 3D printing. The conversation lulls as we begin to think about the possibilities of what might be coming next, hard for me to grasp because I’m already enthralled by what he’s described to me as already being here, from machine watercolors to tapestries held together by circuitry. Chicago Art Department, 1932 S. Halsted St., Ste. 100. Through December 5. (312)7254223. chicagoartdepartment.org
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delegate Malcolm London stepped up to assert that “black lives matter” was what needed to be heard today. A few minutes later, Frank Chapman, a founder of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, spoke. “We started fighting police crimes forty-some odd years ago with our organization,” he said. “We got started right in the wake of the murder of Fred Hampton, who was a member of the Black Panther Party. Back then, they were systematically murdering and killing off the black leadership, particularly the young, revolutionary black leadership. And to some extent they succeeded, because Fred is dead. But he said you can kill the revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution. And so I’m glad to see everybody here today, because you witnessed today. The struggle’s starting all over again. What we did back then you’re going to do today, and you’re going to do it better.” At 7:51pm, CBS tweeted that Darren Wilson had not been indicted, and we observed four and a half minutes of silence, in honor of the four and a half hours Michael Brown’s body had been left on the ground. After a few minutes of chanting, it began snowing softly again, and we gathered around a bullhorn, where someone was live-streaming the official jury decision from Ferguson. The announcement, from chief prosecutor McCullough, was exasperatingly long, though phrases like “the law authorizes police officers to use deadly force in certain situations” made clear what
everyone already knew. At 8:34pm, I got the mass text from protestors in Ferguson, announcing the decision to over 17,000 people who’d signed up. “The fight continues, the movement lives,” it concluded. We had already started marching east on 35th Street, as the younger leaders led chants of “no justice, no peace,” “hands up, don’t shoot,” and, most powerfully, “WE SHUT SHIT DOWN.” We turned north on King Drive, and then east on 31st Street. We turned left down the exit ramp onto Lake Shore Drive. We walked north and traffic stopped. People got out of their cars and shouted with us. We crossed to the northbound side of Lake Shore and started marching up that. While this was happening, protestors in Ferguson were brutally teargassed. President Obama was telling the country, “No one needs good policing more than poor communities with high crime rates.” But we went on past McCormick Place and Soldier Field, turned west on Balbo and soon threaded a way north. More people joined downtown, where the chants of “black lives matter” resounded. There had to be over a hundred police officers blocking the streets. We passed City Hall, stopped at the United Center, and took the streets again. We didn’t stop until we’d reached the river, and even then some people continued east. It was never about Darren Wilson. “They killed Mike Brown,” protestors chanted. “They” still stand to be indicted. (John Gamino) NOVEMBER 26, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 17
CALENDAR BULLETIN 9th Annual People’s Gala Since 2005, the group Men and Women in Prison Ministries has been bringing together the families and friends of the incarcerated at their annual People’s Gala. “When the legal system fails,” they argue, “the family fails as well.” The annual Gala is intended to provide a space where those close to prisoners can fight the pressures incarceration places on them through networking and providing support to one another. This year’s Gala is held in commemoration of World AIDS Day, an observance created by the World Health Organization to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS, which affects about 1.4% of prisoners in the United States. Prince Hall Masonic Temple, 809 E. 42nd Place. Tuesday, December 2, 6pm9pm. $25. (312)328-9610. mwipmgala2014.eventbrite.com (Osita Nwanevu)
STAGE & SCREEN The Ugly Sweater Run Still haven’t worn that hideous sweater your Great Aunty Gertrude knitted for you last Christmas? Warm her heart and your legs by wearing it at Chicago’s iteration of the Ugly Sweater Run, supposedly the “Merriest 5k on the Planet.” But what if you’re a novice runner with trouble staying motivated? Just think of the free hot chocolate and choice of Sam Adams or hard cider provided at the event (for those of age). Experienced runner? That elaborately knitted Christmas tree will provide extra weight for a true challenge. The run is roughly 3.1 miles of yuletide merriment, with holiday-themed stations at each mile and finish-line festivities including receiving a custom-knit hat and awards for best mustache (real and fake), best beard, and best and worst sweater. The run benefits the charity Save the Children, which is dedicated to improving childhoods across the world with a broad range of programs. Walkers are also welcome. Soldier Field, 1410 Museum Campus Dr. Saturday, November 29. 11am. $35; $40 for day-of registration; $30 for those under 21; free for children 5 and under. See website to register and for more info. theuglysweaterrun.com (Mark Hassenfratz)
Gli Ultimi (The Last Ones) Screening On December 5th, allow yourself to be transported—with no harm done to your bank account—from Logan Screening Room 201 to 1930s Udine, a city in northeastern Italy. Gli Ultimi (The Last Ones), an Italian film first released in 1963, received high praise from the likes of Italian artists Pier Paolo Pasolini and Giuseppe Ungaretti for its simple yet “profoundly poetic” portrait of a young shepherd living in an impoverished Italy. Through a lens of post-neorealism, directors Vito Pandolfi and David Maria Turoldo capture on screen their country’s historical struggle to reconcile progress and tradition. Despite acclaim from the film community, the film found little commercial success; the few remaining copies were discarded or left to deteriorate until 1991, when a case was made for the film’s restoration. Gli Ultimi, now restored, will finally get its long overdue U.S. premiere just south of the Midway. The screening will be followed by a discussion with archivist Luca Giuliani. Logan Center, 915 E. 60th St. Friday, December 5, 7pm. Free. (773)702-8596. arts.uchicago.edu (Emeline Posner)
KINOSONIK #2 Olivia Block, a critically acclaimed electroacoustic composer and artist, and Tomeka Reid, Chicago-based classical and jazz cellist who doubles as an active jazz organizer and educator, are uniting to present Black Cinema House’s second installment of KINOSONIK. As at the previous event with featured artists Joseph Clayton Mills and Marvin Tate, the artist pair will study four films selected from the Chicago Film Archives and provide live scores to accompany them. The films range from a single shot of a mining explosion shot by the Reserve Mining Company to an educational film
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by Encyclopedia Britannica about the forces that cause erosion on Earth. Join them for yet another interesting exploration in film and music. Black Cinema House, 7200 S. Kimbark Ave. Sunday, December 7, 4pm. RSVP recommended. blackcinemahouse.org (Clyde Schwab)
VISUAL ARTS
of the installation can be found one door down from Uri-Eichen at the Al DiFranco Studio. In accordance with the exhibit’s theme, the music of Joe Hill, an early 20th century Swedish-American labor activist, will be played around 8pm at this neighboring venue. Uri-Eichen Gallery, 2101 S. Halsted St. and Al DiFranco Studio, 2107 S. Halsted St. Through December 3, by appointment. Free. (312)852-7717. uri-eichen.com (Emeline Posner)
The Material That Went to Make Me
Affects Illustrated
This month at the South Side Community Art Center, the Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project presents a collection of artwork created in classes at the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois. In both visual and text-based works, inmates use art to talk about their daily experiences behind bars and their movement within the prison system. The exhibit calls to attention the many issues prisoners face, including illiteracy, gangs, and violence within prison walls. Pieces such as timelines and schedules of how prisoners spend every hour of their day within the system are also on display. The exhibit strives to offer a humanizing look at prisoners, one rarely seen in popular media. South Side Community Art Center, 3831 S. Michigan Ave. November 15-December 6. Monday-Friday, 12pm-5pm; Saturday, 9am-5pm; Sunday, 1pm-5pm. (773)373-1026. sscartcenter.org (Michelle Gan)
The press picture shows dismembered, vaguely architectural pieces of pink metal standing in a field. It’s actually a digitally cut-up photograph of artist and UofC Visual Arts teacher Hannah Givler’s sculpture “Avatar.” The sculpture is one of several pieces that comprise “Affects Illustrated,” a site-specific installation that plays with the dynamics of interiors and exteriors and examines spatial relationships. The show also addresses themes like materialism, fictional utopias, and city planning, which feature heavily in Givler’s research. 4th Ward Project Space, 5338 S. Kimbark Ave. Through December 21. Saturday and Sunday, 1pm-5pm. Opening reception November 9, 3pm-6pm. Free. 4wps.org (Julie Wu)
For the Brown Kids For the month of November, a poem addressing “those who learned to live the blues before they could tie their shoes” is being reimagined as a visual art exhibit at the Beverly Arts Center. The EXPO collective has gathered Chicago artists and had them illustrate their take on “For Brown Boys,” Rodrigo Sanchez-Chavarria’s direct, emotional exploration of the experience of growing up brown. EXPO calls the event a celebration of “diversity in art and in society,” highlighting the fact that the show bridges mediums while wrestling with the same theme of race. The show ran for the first time in June, but if you missed it, this is your second chance to see nineteen artists do their best to transfer a powerful poem onto canvas. Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St. Through November 30. Monday-Friday, 9am-9pm; Saturday, 9am5pm; Sunday, 1pm-4pm. Free. (773)445-3838. beverlyartcenter.org (Mari Cohen)
Krampusnacht at Co-Prosperity Sphere In keeping with Chicago’s obsession with German-themed celebrations of Christmas (see: Christkindlmarket), the Co-Prosperity Sphere will ring in the holiday season with Krampusnacht. In its second year, the Christmas-ish event is inspired by a devilish creature, Krampus, Germanic folklore’s equivalent to a lump of coal. Yes, that’s right, naughty children are carried off in Krampus’s lair in a sack that looks a lot like the one in which Santa carries gifts for nice children. On the night before the Feast of St. Nicholas, Co-Pro will bring the tradition to the South Side, with an an exhibition devoted to the horned, pointy-tongued beast, which will likely include many much scarier renditions of the “Where the Wild Things Are” cast. There will also be a photo booth, costume contest, plenty of glögg (mulled wine), and a traditional Krampuslaufen—when drunken celebrants dressed as Krampus will run through the streets and, hopefully, not actually kidnap the children of Bridgeport. The Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S. Morgan St. Friday, December 5. 8pm-midnight. (773)837-0145. $10; $5 with a Krampus-related costume or constructed Krampus head for display. 21+. coprosperity.org (Bess Cohen)
Labor Migrant Gulf The boteh is the droplet-like shape at the heart of the paisley pattern. It is also a symbol of religion, culture, and appropriation for many in Asia. Fittingly, this symbol serves as the centerpiece of the “Labor/Migrant/ Gulf ” installation at Pilsen’s Uri-Eichen. The installation was developed in part as a response to the unsafe working conditions of migrant laborers in the Arabian/Persian Gulf. Additionally, the exhibit gives due attention to laborers around the Mexican-American border and the history of migrants in California. This second half
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MUSIC Tecora Rogers at the Promontory The Mo Better Jazz series was founded in 2012 to promote jazz music on the South Side, hosting weekly performances at their own venue on 75th Street. This upcoming Friday, the series will present Tecora Rogers at the Promontory in Hyde Park. Born in Chicago, Rogers has been singing since the age of six, and has further honed her powerhouse vocals singing gospel music. Her set at the Promontory is the ideal post-Turkey Day activity, because we all know there is no better way to ease the stomach pains of Thursday’s overeating than a little jazz in a cozy venue. If you miss this performance, Rogers can be seen performing regularly around the city she calls home, both showcasing her own jazz repertoire and playing with her group the Chicago Spirituals. The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Friday, November 28, doors at 7pm, show at 8pm. $15. Tickets available online. 21+. (312)801-2100. promontorychicago.com. (Elizabeth Bynum)
Diamond Plate at Reggies Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson once insisted, “If heavy metal bands ruled the world, we’d be a lot better off.” A controversial notion, perhaps, but one that will be heartily embraced by swaths of diehard
metalheads when Diamond Plate stomps into town this Saturday. The Worth, Illinois natives and kings of thrash have been reaching new levels of musical ferocity since 2004, when they signed with legendary hardcore label Earache Records. Saturday’s show will also feature wailing, bullet-belted wonders Whut?, En Masse, Vicious Attack, Air Raid, and Count Rugen. In an almost poetic affirmation of Dickinson’s claim, a portion of the show’s proceeds will benefit Toys for Tots, reminding us that melting faces and helping kids are not necessarily mutually exclusive endeavors. Reggies Rock Club, 2105 S. State St. November 29, 7pm. $12-$15. 17+. (312)949-0120. reggieslive.com (Olivia Myszkowski)
Angel Olsen While she exists in the same network as singer-songwriters Sharon Van Etten and Courtney Barnett, Angel Olsen opts for a much more electric sound than either of those artists, even breaking out into blistering hard rock on tracks like “Forgiven/Forgotten” and “Hi-Five.” That being said, Olsen is certainly rooted in folk, something more obvious on her first album Half Way Home but still preserved in cuts off her new album like “Unfucktheworld” and “White Fire,” the latter of which is a seven-minute standout with the lyrical acuity of any of your favorite 1960s folk artists and the musical religiosity of Leonard Cohen. While on record a Strokes-esque vocal filter often obscures Olsen as she sings, attendees of her Thalia Hall show will be able to hear the full grain and power of her voice. Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport St. November 29, 9pm. 17+. $18. (312)526-3851. thaliahallchicago.com (Austin Brown)
Joey DeFrancesco at Jazz Showcase The South Loop jazz hub Jazz Showcase is slated to host legendary organist Joey DeFrancesco and his trio for a weekend of shows starting this Thursday. Born near Philadelphia, DeFrancesco’s parents introduced him to jazz at four, and by age ten he was playing with a band in Philly. At just sixteen he signed with Columbia Records and went on to record over thirty albums, working with the likes of Miles Davis and Jimmy Smith. DeFrancesco was instrumental in restoring the Hammond B-3 organ to its place in jazz music. His particular brand of organ music, inspired primarily by the Philadelphia jazz scene, frequently spirals off into complicated improvisation before returning to familiar, catchy, and soulful hooks. Jazz Showcase, 806 S. Plymouth Ct. Thursday, November 27 through Saturday, November 29, 8pm-10pm. Also Sunday, November 30, 4pm, 8pm, and 10pm. $25. (312)360-0234 (Clyde Schwab)
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 Dylan West and Andrew Fialkowski
1. Various Artists / The Rise and Fall of Paramount Vol. 2 / Third Man 2. Iceage / Plowing Through the Field of Love / Matador 3. Dean Blunt / Black Metal / Rough Trade 4. Ultimate Painting / Ultimate Painting / Trouble in Mind 5. Gel Set/Stacian / Voorhees / Moniker 6. Masks / Food Plus Drugs (II) / Opal Tapes 7. Meatbodies / Mud Gals / In the Red 8. Bob Mould / Beauty and Ruin / Merge 9. The Yolks / Kings of Awesome! / Randy 10. Hessismore / Myheadisaballroom / Whoneedsapalaceanyway / Concierge 11. October 31 / Bury The Hatchet / Hells Headbangers 12. C.O.B. / Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart [reissue] / Sunbeam 13. Nader Sadek / The Malefic: Chapter III / Self-Released 14. Oozing Wound / Earth Suck / Thrill Jockey 15. Sitar Outreach Ministry / Revolution in Dimension 5 / Magnetic South
NOVEMBER 26, 2014 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19