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SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is a nonprofit newsprint magazine written for and about neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago. We publish in-depth coverage of the arts and issues of public interest alongside oral histories, poetry, fiction, interviews, and artwork from local photographers and illustrators. Started as a student paper at the University of Chicago, the South Side Weekly is now an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting cultural and civic engagement on the South Side, and to providing educational opportunities for developing journalists, writers, and artists.
IN CHICAGO A week’s worth of developing stories, odd events, and signs of the times, culled from the desks, inboxes, and wandering eyes of the editors
Prepare to Strike? Insert your chosen cliché about history repeating itself here, because the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is considering another strike, Editor-in-Chief Osita Nwanevu and this is not a drill. As the city’s budget woes continue, CPS CEO Executive Editor Bess Cohen Managing Editor Olivia Stovicek Forrest Claypool warned in a Tribune op-ed on Sunday about the danger of “drastic cuts” for CPS teachers and classrooms if they don’t Politics Editor Christian Belanger receive the remaining $480 million they are counting on for the Education Editor Mari Cohen Music Editor Maha Ahmed budget from Springfield. In response to the threat of such cuts, the Stage & Screen Julia Aizuss CTU announced that on Thursday they will hold a “practice vote” on Editor Visual Arts Editor Emeline Posner whether to hold a strike, and president Karen Lewis has asked memEditors-at-Large Lucia Ahrensdorf, bers to start saving money in case a strike does happen next year. If the Jake Bittle, CTU does eventually call for a strike, seventy-five percent of mem Austin Brown, Sarah Claypoole, bers would have to approve it in a formal vote—hence the need for a Emily Lipstein practice round to gauge support. While Claypool and CPS are putting Contributing Editors Will Cabaniss, the onus on Springfield to figure this out and deliver the big bucks, Eleonora Edreva, Lewis Page, the CTU accused CPS in an October 30 blog post of failing to take Hafsa Razi responsibility for its own role in the crisis; the post argued they could Social Media Editor Sam Stecklow have pursued measures such as asking for a property tax referendum, Web Editor Andrew Koski Visuals Editor Ellie Mejia or avoided other actions the CTU considers missteps, such as charter Layout Editors Adam Thorp, expansion. In any case, don’t underestimate the CTU’s willingness to Baci Weiler, take this to a strike. As Lewis asked reporters, “Do they think we’re Sofia Wyetzner bluffing?” Senior Writer: Stephen Urchick Staff Writers: Olivia Adams, Amelia Dmowska, Maira Khwaja, Emiliano Burr di Mauro, Michal Kranz, Zoe Makoul, Sammie Spector, Zach Taylor Staff Photographers: Juliet Eldred, Finn Jubak, Alexander Pizzirani, Julie Wu Staff Illustrators: Javier Suarez, Addie Barron, Jean Cochrane, Lexi Drexelius, Wei Yi Ow, Amber Sollenberger, Teddy Watler, Julie Wu, Zelda Galewsky, Seonhyung Kim Editorial Intern
Clyde Schwab
Webmaster Publisher
Sofia Wyetzner Harry Backlund
The paper is produced by an all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city. We distribute each Wednesday in the fall, winter, and spring, with breaks during April and December. Over the summer we publish monthly. Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to: South Side Weekly 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 For advertising inquiries, contact: (773)234-5388 or advertising@southsideweekly Read our stories online at southsideweekly.com
Other Fish to Fry Here are the facts: amid the stalemate on Illinois’ four-month-overdue 2016 budget, the City Council signed off on Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s city budget, which includes a record $589 million property tax hike. In return, Governor Bruce Rauner bought some dead fish that will
Hillary Comes Home Democratic presidential frontrunner and Chicago native Hillary Clinton spent no more than a few hours in Chicago on Monday, but she likely collected enough cash to make the trip worthwhile. Clinton, born at the Loop’s former Edgewater Hospital and raised in Park Ridge, dashed around the city to three different “fundraising conversations” on Monday. She headlined a lunch at the home of Invenergy CEO Michael Polsky where tickets went for $2,700, albeit after arriving more than an hour late. But she also used the trip to highlight issues of racial justice and gun violence, meeting with the mother of slain Ferguson teen Michael Brown and family members of several other youths who died in high-profile shootings. Her many return trips to the city are understandable, given how deep the pockets of some Chicagoans have proven to be. According to WGN 9 News, Clinton had raised more $2.6 million in Illinois as of September 30. Chicago may be the place from which to start locking down the Prairie State.
IN THIS ISSUE
the voodoo of hell’s half-acre
narratives of nature
There is nothing contained in the anthology that is not both richly informative and intensely personal. darren wan...4 this is not a movie
“The myth of the charming Mafioso, or the allure of gangster riches...” c.j. fraley...5 who will carry the burden?
Cover illustration by Kriss Stress
apparently soon make its way to Emanuel’s doorstep, a pointed reference to the old “Emanuel-sent-a-dead-fish-to-a-pollster-in-1988” chestnut, itself a pointed reference to a scene in The Godfather. Now, here are the other facts: Rauner and Emanuel have long been good friends, even sharing a Montana getaway in 2010, where they were photographed toting expensive bottles of Napa Valley red wine. Rauner bought the dead fish at Paulina Market in Lincoln Park, and the “dead fish” was in fact a pair of plastic-wrapped tuna steaks—less an insult than a potential meal. Seared tuna is known to go well with rosé or Pinot noir. Word’s out on whether or not Rauner also bought Paulina’s “Butcher your arms around me” apron.
“It would be very surprising if the renter paid nothing.” max bloom...6
the studio is a universe
We try to fly, but we can still fall. christopher good...8 city witches
“Most of us in Chicago are urban witches.” olivia adams...9
“Shush, guys! Don’t play so loud—I got to tell them about this part!” stephen urchick...10 a call to pray
“Taking education advocacy to the highest level” christopher good...11 café draws newcomers to pullman
“I figured I would open the café just to have something here and hopefully spark other entrepeneurs to come out this way.” sara cohen...12 NOVEMBER 4, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3
Narratives of Nature
City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness BY DARREN WAN
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nstead of providing a species-by-species account of the richness of urban biodiversity, a new anthology entitled City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness collects stories that inscribe meaning into the natural landscapes of Chicagoland. Ranging from essays and installation art to poems and tattoos, the book surprises with how centrally it features 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
narrative. Gavin Van Horn, the Director of Cultures of Conservation at the Center for Humans and Nature, and Dave Aftandilian, a fellow at the Center, were both editors of the anthology, which explores the intersection of animals, religion, and ethics, among other topics. In their introduction, they quote Jonathan Gottschall, a scholar who
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specializes in the intersection of literature and evolution: “We are, as a species, addicted to story.” That is, without a doubt, the philosophy that drives this collection. Standing at the shores of Lake Calumet, admiring monk parakeets in Hyde Park, and imagining Illinois in the Paleozoic Era are narratives that underpin several essays and poems, making City Creatures as rich in texture as the biodiversity it describes. “Part of my job is to think about what paths there might be for people to think about themselves in relationship with the natural world, and how their role matters for the well-being of the places that we call home in Chicago,” Van Horn said at an event at the Chicago Theological Seminary in September. Chicago is the prime backdrop for such an anthology, he argued, because it “has more biodiversity in its greater metropolitan area than rural Illinois because of corn and soy production.” The dichotomy that resonates throughout City Creatures, between the manmade and the natural presented in the anthology, is in no way a reproduction of the urban-rural binary, at least not in the Midwest. Nestled within Chicago’s exterior of concrete and asphalt are rich ecosystems, and beyond the city, before rural Illinois begins, are vast expanses of wildlife. The landscapes of Chicagoland could not be more suitable for evoking creative human responses to the nonhuman. Like Van Horn promised, the thread of Chicago’s ecological history runs deep in many of City Creatures’ pieces. The alewife herring’s colonization of Lake Michigan, for example, and especially the population’s subsequent yearly die-offs, is an olfactory memory seared into the minds of many Chicagoans. The collection reimagines this event through different mediums and perspectives. In an essay, Curt Meine ponders the ecological sea change that Lake Michigan has undergone, recounting morbid scenes of dead fish piling up on the lakefront. Todd Davis refashions these experiences in verse, with language that is starkly visual: “Against the sand their sides / no longer glisten.” A mixed media installation by Colleen Plumb broaches the issue by depicting the densely layered dried alewives upon a surface in relief. This multitude of voices and media is where City Creatures triumphs. Some pieces are playful musings on an animal encounter,
while others rouse greater moral questions. As a collection of personal pieces, the anthology does not purport to explain why animals are essential in shaping the well being of the city as a singular unit. Rather, City Creatures documents emotional and intellectual responses to nonhuman animals, and in so doing, demonstrates how humans define themselves. There is nothing within the anthology that is not both richly informative and intensely personal. Even Peggy Macnamara’s “Nature on Pause,” a collection of water color paintings of various specimens from the Field Museum, is paired with an essay that describes her personal relationship with the museum’s taxidermy animals and bird nests. In a different vein, René H. Arceo’s “Pescado Blanco en Río Chicago” (“White Fish in Chicago River”), a woodcut that relocates a species of fish native to Mexico’s Lake Pátzcuaro to Chicago River, acts at once as a metaphor for the movement of communities across manmade boundaries and a personal narrative. There is also a power in some of these works that is not immediately evident when contemplating Chicago’s urban wildlife. The late David Hernandez, once deemed the unofficial poet laureate of Chicago, writes in his poem “Pigeons”: “Pigeons are the spicks of Birdland.” Eli Suzukovich III’s “Kiskinwahamâtowin” (“Learning Together”) discusses the establishment of a prairie restoration garden at the American Indian Center of Chicago as a tool for education. In the comic strip “The Indomitable Water Bear”, Alex Chitty depicts the micro-animal as a means of inspiring resolve in his readers. As all of these pieces show, human interaction with ecosystems of nonhuman animals reveals more about the ecosystem of human communities than one would expect. Van Horn’s wistful prose bookends City Creatures: he opens the charming anthology by recounting his first encounter with Chicago’s coyotes and concludes with an essay on the lost buffalos of the tallgrass prairies that once sprawled across Illinois. While it may be difficult to connect with the ecology of a bygone landscape, it is no challenge at all for these words to resonate within many Chicagoans: “If this city can be a home for coyotes, I thought, then it can be a home for me, too.” Gavin Van Horn and Dave Aftandilian, eds., City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness. University of Chicago Press. 264 pages. $30.
BOOKS
This Is Not a Movie The Insane Chicago Way by John M. Hagedorn BY C.J. FRALEY
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certain conflict always exists in attempting to portray real violence in media. In one sense, violence is dramatic, wars are exciting, and crime is thrilling. But the destruction of human lives is something that responsible authors feel compelled to treat with some solemnity. In The Insane Chicago Way, criminologist John M. Hagedorn makes it clear that he won’t engage in a clichéd portrayal of violence on the streets of Chicago, neither the myth of the charming Mafioso nor the allure of gangster riches. The book covers the life and death of a couple of Chicago’s biggest gangs in the nineties: the People and Folks coalitions and Spanish Growth and Development (SGD), the latter of which would become the Spanish Gangster Disciples. The narrative chronicles a failed attempt to reduce community violence, and Hagedorn’s subjects are a web of real people who were killed or had their lives destroyed through violence, incarceration, and drug use. In the book, Hagedorn doesn’t directly dispute the typical image of a violent and territorial gangster; in fact, these personalities feature heavily. He does, however, present new narratives, clearly showing that the criminal network of Chicago is in no way homogeneous. There are people left with no choice but gang life; there are college-educated people who choose to go into crime; there are activists and corrupt politicians; there are gangsters obsessed with appearances and those who craft entire organizations around restraint. Hagedorn’s narrative is anchored by a series of meetings, meals, and neighborhood tours between him and an anonymous gang member, Sal. Sal is alternately capable of composure and violence, of bias and rationality, facets of his personality that Hagedorn displays with skill. Despite Sal’s anonymity, it is almost impossible for the
reader not to construct a vivid mental image of him. Even better than Hagedorn’s descriptions are the ways in which these gang members describe themselves. When Hagedorn quotes from an interview at length, it gives his subjects the chance to explain themselves and the world they live in, whether it’s Sal describing the birth of the C-Note$—a mostly Italian street gang founded in the fifties—or a transcript detailing the near-bureaucratic nature of SGD. While Hagedorn should be commended for these insightful interviews, his use of metaphors is sometimes forced, and his transitions can be tough to read. His own appearances in the text are also uncomfortable. At one point, he completely removes us from the story for an anachronistic anecdote about speaking for the Chicago Crime Commission, a nonprofit organization committed to criminal justice reform. “[This] is a story,” Hagedorn writes, “that by its very telling is meant to encourage others to ask new questions and to look at familiar forms in different ways.” To that point, the book is surprisingly accessible. While Hagedorn does bring in outside sources regularly and the examination of academic criminology is a central tenet of his book, he does not ground his viewpoint in concepts that require outside knowledge. The Insane Chicago Way is a fascinating recounting of a series of events from Chicago’s criminal past with a cast of vibrant characters. It’s also a thesis on the weaknesses of the current academic understanding of gangs and, consequently, the strategies employed by law enforcement and politicians to control them. John M. Hagedorn, The Insane Chicago Way: The Daring Plan by Chicago Gangs to Create a Spanish Mafia. University of Chicago Press. 320 pages. $27.50. NOVEMBER 4, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5
The property tax hike and the South Side
Who Will Carry the Burden?
BY MAX BLOOM
Dark areas are census tracts where most homeowners would pay more under Emanuel’s tax plan than they do currently; light areas are census tracts where most homeowners would pay less under Emanuel’s tax plan. max bloom
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n October 28, the Chicago City Council approved a 65% property tax increase proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to head off the city’s looming police and fire pension crisis. The hike is expected to bring the city $543 million for those funds by 2018, an amount that will put only a modest dent in the city’s $20 billion in unfunded pension obligations. Who will the hike hit the hardest? As it stands, most South Side homeowners will be unaffected, while landlords and their tenants could feel more of a pinch. Emanuel’s proposal increases the “homestead” exemption offered to all home-
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owners from $7,000 to $14,000, making the tax more progressive than it currently is— for those with property worth much more than $250,000, the increased tax rates will outweigh the increase in exemption. Because there are only a handful of South Side neighborhoods where most homeowners own properties worth that much—Hyde Park, Kenwood, Bronzeville, and most of Bridgeport—most South Side homeowners won’t be paying any more in property taxes. But the “homestead” exemption doesn’t apply to business owners and landlords. As a result, those two groups will actually pay a bit more in taxes next year given increased
tax rates elsewhere in the budget. One big worry for South Siders is that landlords will pass these higher tax rates on to their tenants. Most South Siders are renters; over two-thirds of the South Side’s community areas have populations in which a majority of households rent. And most of these neighborhoods have an affordability crisis: the overwhelming majority of South Side census tracts see renters spending more than a third of their income on rent. This isn’t the case on the North Side or in the more affluent areas of the West Side. If property taxes cause rents to rise across the city, renters in Washington Park and Englewood will find it harder to pay their bills than renters almost anywhere else in the city, and the South Side as a whole will be disproportionately impacted. Estimates differ on how much the tax hike will produce higher rents. The Emanuel administration estimates that an average apartment unit will see an increase in rent of about twenty dollars a month, or $240 a year. The Chicagoland Apartment Association contested these figures, predicting the cost would be closer to thirty-two dollars more per month. It is also not clear how applicable these estimates are to the South Side. Unlike the North Side, South Side neighborhoods tend to have vacancy rates much higher than the city average, and the Emanuel administration has claimed that high rates of vacancies will make it hard for landlords to pass the cost of the tax hike on to their tenants. But Christopher Berry, a professor of public policy at the University of Chicago, is doubtful. “It would be very surprising if the renter paid nothing,” he says. “As for the exact fraction the renter pays and the landlord pays—there are papers at both extremes. You can pick whatever result you want out
POLITICS
of the literature. The city is right to emphasize the fact that there seems to be a lot of excess supply.” “The more of the tax that is borne by the landlords, the more we expect landlords to adjust in the long term,” he continues. “The city may say that’s not such a problem because we have an excess of supply. But it seems hard to reconcile an affordable housing shortage with excess supply.” Additionally, the fact that low-income renters may find it harder to switch to a new apartment than higher-income renters—especially given that some at the bottom of the market might not be able to find apartments that are cheaper than the ones they already live in—might give landlords more leeway to increase rents. The concern that landlords and their tenants would bear the costs of the exemptions provided to other homeowners was among the reasons behind the critique of the exemption advanced by the nonpartisan think tank the Civic Federation, which endorsed the tax plan overall. “[Homestead exemptions] should be limited and targeted to the lowest income homeowners and renters,” the Federation wrote in a report on a proposed budget last month, “because property taxes in Cook County are a zero-sum game, meaning that tax relief provided to one property owner must be paid for by all other owners.” The Federation recommended an income-based “circuit-breaker” solution: a tax relief program run by the state through the state income tax “designed to provide relief when a person’s property tax liability exceeds a certain percentage of their annual income.” This would target relief specifically at low-income homeowners on the South Side and across the city and potentially re-
ellie mejia
duce the burden on landlords and renters by preserving revenue from the tax hike. The Chicago City Council’s Progressive Caucus,
which includes seven South Side aldermen, also advanced an alternative: a program that would, like the Federation’s “circuit-break-
er”, target relief at low-income homeowners by giving a tax rebate to households earning an income under four times the federal poverty line. Even though the budget has passed City Council, the city may have to look to these and other alternatives to increase the homestead exemption, given that the measure is unlikely to pass in Springfield, where it requires both a vote in the legislature and Governor Bruce Rauner’s signature. Rauner, who strongly opposes a property tax hike in Chicago, has already suggested he will veto any component of Emanuel’s plan that requires state approval. The city is also awaiting the passage of another piece of crucial fiscal legislation in Springfield. Current city projections assume that state government will approve Senate Bill 777, which extends the timeframe of the city’s requirement to adequately fund pensions by fifteen years. If the bill isn’t passed, the city will owe $843 million more over the next five years than it has currently budgeted. Governor Rauner opposes that bill as well. Additionally, the Illinois Supreme Court could overturn recent reforms to municipal worker and laborer funds. Both that and the failure of Senate Bill 777 would mean that the city’s pension funds would face solvency issues even with the property tax increase. Between the dim prospects of the homesteader’s exemption and Senate Bill 777 in Springfield, the city’s finances are murky. The same can be said of the finances of the South Side’s renters, who may or may not face rent increases as a result of the tax hike. Amid the chaos, one thing is clear: the burden of the hike will not be felt equally across neighborhoods.
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VISUAL ARTS
“The Studio Is a Universe” Jesús Acuña on Icarus and the basis of art BY CHRISTOPHER GOOD
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n a warm autumn evening, I’m talking with the painter, sculptor, and muralist Jesús Acuña in his studio. He paces the room as he tells me about his latest project, a retelling of the myth of Dédalo and el Minotauro. Despite the archaic subject matter, Acuña’s new project—like so much of his work—concerns contemporary fears. As we talk about global warming, he tells me about a story he read in the news the other day. In Chiapas or Campeche in southern Mexico—I can’t believe it—there was a church that was covered by water for three hundred, two hundred years. Now, [because the water level is so low], you can see it. I’ve been reading about Greek mythology and creating these sketches about Icarus—I’m trying to bring Icarus to our contemporary life. You know how Icarus fell down because he got too close to the sun? Now, that is global warming. The humanity that has tried to explore space, planets, anything, has forgotten that the most important thing is that we are living on this planet and that we can destroy it. That’s why I brought him to our contemporary life...We try to fly, but we can still fall. Acuña’s McKinley Park studio is a reflection of the artist. Charcoal sketches are tacked to the paint-spattered walls; paperbacks and notebooks are stacked on every available surface. As we talk, Acuña tells me about his influences, jumping from Beckmann and Brueghel to Orozco and Diebenkorn without missing a beat. Chagall, he says, is a particular inspiration—the flying 8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
silhouettes remind him of his own Icarus motif. I like to work in abstract. I think I feel much better because it’s more relaxing. I’ve been working for years—at the beginning it’s difficult, but now I like it, because for me it’s very important to find another kind of expression. Abstract elements help me...In the abstract, there’s something people can see many times. In something realistic, you always find the same. When I started working on clay, I discovered that I didn’t know anything about art. For me, to start working in clay is to [become] an artist. I like it. You explore dimensions. When I work with clay, I understand better the universal art. For me, the basis of art is the clay. I started with painting. I feel bad that I started late with clay, because it makes you change your point of view. You feel different, believe me. It’s another life. As we talk, Acuña shows me another project he’s working on: a series of clay sculptures modeled after his wife and two sons. There’s a plastic sheet draped over each of the busts (to keep them from oxidizing, he tells me) but even in their unfinished state, they’re fascinating: there’s a timeless and placeless quality about them, as if they’d make just as much sense in a temple as in a gallery. I studied agriculture in Mexico, [and] later, I studied art. But first, it was agriculture. I realized [I wanted] to be an artist later on. In Mexico you’ve got to do something—there’s a lot of prejudice from the family, you know, if you don’t make mon-
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VANESSA BARAJAS
ey. But I always believed in my work, and it helped me change my point of view. Here, though, you can’t believe it. People that studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, or in any university—many of them, after they graduate, they go to work in the restaurants. And then, they can’t continue working in art. That’s terrible. It’s part of the system. It’s like slavery: you keep paying and paying and paying and paying. Everything’s getting expensive. It’s business. But I’m living from my work, you know? I’m always trying to find a new project. Always trying to explore different things. I think the art is a lot of work... but the most important thing is to keep working. I think the projects are coming by themselves, alone. You got to make proposals, and it’s like fishing: I make seven proposals and I only get two or three. So you got to fish more. Acuña is constantly working. He intends for his Dédalo project to be a “conversation” between different mediums, so
he plans to create several paintings and sculptures as well as a range of woodcuts— something new for him. In the meantime, he’s working with Chicago Artists Month to plan an installation for Whittier Elementary School. I never got afraid of art. On the contrary, it gives me the opportunity to be happy, to better understand life, society... that’s it. I feel very comfortable with my profession. I don’t feel tired; I enjoy what I’m doing. The most important thing is to believe in what you’re doing and keep working. Everything else comes by itself. You can do anything—believe me, anything. Sometimes, if you don’t get something now, you just have to keep faith. It’ll happen later. The artist is like a worker. You got to keep working everyday. But the difference between the people going to the factory or the company [and the artist] is the studio. The studio is a universe. It’s not a factory—it’s something where every day, you find something new. I like it.
NEIGHBORS
City Witches Laura Gonzalez, witch for hire BY OLIVIA ADAMS
CAROLINA SANCHEZ
Neighbors is the Weekly’s new series that profiles ordinary people with extraordinary stories to tell. Think we should profile someone you know? Send your pitches to editor@southsideweekly.com.
L
aura Gonzalez, a forty-two-year-old native of Mexico City, welcomed me into her home last Sunday to talk about her life as a witch, a Wiccan, and, most broadly, a Pagan. We lit incense upon settling into her kitchen, to calm the air in advance of our conversation. As I waited, I caught the eye of the Hindu god Ganesh in the corner, enshrined on top of a refrigerator. I switched my glance and noticed a whimsical broom guarding a doorway. An open terrarium sat behind me with a turtle basking in the heat lamp, limbs fully extended, unthreatened, and taking it all in. “The first thing they ask is, ‘Do you worship Satan?’ And Satan is a Christian concept, deity, essence, whatever you want to call it. It’s not a Pagan concept. So no! How can I worship something that I don’t believe in?” Gonzalez said, slightly exasperated. “No, we don’t eat babies and we don’t kill cats. What you see in the movies—no. We don’t fly on brooms.” “But you do jump over them!” I quipped. “Yes!” she said with a chortle. “I love the traditional aspect of it because it was the old witches of ancient times. The ones we are trying to emulate and learn from. They use the broom to cleanse the space and get all the
negativity out of it.” Gonzalez, a self-employed witch, serves as South Side host, co-organizer, and vice president for the board of the Center of the Elemental Spirit: A Congregational Wiccan Community, a not-for-profit organization. She also hosts the Pagans Tonight radio show in both English and Spanish, distributed online using BlogTalkRadio, and has a new program coming out on the platform tentatively called Lunatic Mondays with Laura Gonzalez. The Center of the Elemental Spirit, based in both Rogers Park and Bridgeport, is about six years old, with the latter, South Side contingent meeting for the last year and a half. Marty Couch, a longtime Wiccan priest, founded the Center; Gonzalez joined three months after the opening, and calls herself the “oldest member.” Gonzalez was raised Catholic, and was the most devout among her family members. Aspects of Pagan ritual surrounded her in the Aztec traditions of her native Mexico. By age sixteen, Gonzalez tore her way through books on the occult, extrasensory perception, and the like. A sense of teenage rebellion caught fire as well, characterizing her departure from the Catholic Church. “You’re sixteen and you tell people ‘I’m Pagan!’ And people’s faces go...Agh!” Gonzalez joked, as she drew her face into a scowl. “But I really didn’t know what the hell I was saying.” It took almost twenty years for Gonzalez to find the Wiccan church. In the mean-
time, she experimented with reading Spanish cards, a less complex version of the tarot cards she now reads for a living. In her early twenties, she followed family ties to Illinois, living in the western suburb of Bensenville before settling in Bridgeport with her husband about fourteen years ago. “It wasn’t until seven years ago when I first met an American witch,” Gonzalez said. “She recommended a couple of books for me, and I started reading about Wicca.” Since then, she’s been actively involved in Chicago’s Pagan communities as both an educator and a proprietor. She holds diplomas in tarotology with a focus in Jungian archetypes from a small private school called Saber and Sanar in Chihuahua, Mexico, run by psychologist Christian Ortiz. Her services as a witch are extensive, ranging from tarot readings to teaching classes on Wicca to providing assistance in the performance of prayers and other magic. “I’m a witch for hire. I don’t have a ‘day job;’ my day job is being a witch,” Gonzalez said. “My spirituality has a big place in my work—I’m not a therapist and I’m not a counselor, but I like to call it therapeutic tarot,” Gonzalez said of her tarot reading business. “Because we like to heal people on big or small issues that are happening in their lives throughout the tarot reading. It helps them with guidance.” Her work with the Center of the Elemental Spirit reflects that desire to heal and
guide others. The Center is the only Wiccan congregation open to the public—most others are covens where membership is invitation-only. The Center provides a place where anyone can learn about Wicca, be they students of religious studies, reporters, practicing Pagans, or people exploring their own spirituality, known as “seekers” in Wiccan circles. To date, the group has about 300 members on paper, but the core group consists of fifteen to twenty regulars. “For me, finding this group was absolutely a coming home,” Gonzalez said. “Like-minded people who are of different ages, colors, genders, backgrounds—everyone is welcome! We just want you to know that there is this group right here.” Gonzalez considers her role as a witch in Chicago unique, in that she must contend with the advancements of a post-industrial world where the traditions of witchcraft, including apothecary arts, midwifery, and farming, are in some ways obsolete. But even as a city witch, she still keeps a broom above her doorway. “I can still go to Jewel and buy lettuce. But we’re trying to use that mythology and mysticism and practice and tradition to intertwine it into our lives,” she says of witches in the city. “Most of us in Chicago are urban witches. We all have phones and stuff, you know? So we’re not living in those ancient times, but we’re using those mythologies and traditions to understand our lives now.”
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STAGE & SCREEN
Black Bittersweet Memories A spoken word blues opera tells the lived experience of Richard Wright BY STEPHEN URCHICK COURTESY OF TRANSITION EAST STUDIO
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poken word poet Lasana Kazembe raised an unsuspecting bottle of water. “Let us pour a libation to sister Zora Neale Hurston—ashe!” The audience at Transition East Studio, an independent audiovisual production space in South Chicago, echoed his invocation with its own affirmative “Ashe!” Kazembe prefaced the night’s performance, a blues opera entitled The Voodoo of Hell’s Half-Acre, with what he described as a customary African invocation of ancestral figures. Kazembe’s opera was based on the decade that writer Richard Wright spent in the city of Chicago, and his opening prayer set up a key theme for the work. Kazembe ran through a list of resonant presences, some historical—like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman—and others more contemporary. “Ashe” (pronounced “ah-shay”) was a kind of confirming “amen.” In soliciting the strength of ages past, Kazembe summoned the concept of the definitive, black utterance. Voodoo confirmed that orality is a powerful, fitting, and worthy engine for expressing cultural watersheds in the African diaspora. While nodding affirmatively at spoken word as a medium, his opera channeled and charted Wright’s spiritual growth in Chicago’s vibrant cityscape. Voodoo consisted of six thematic poem 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
performances and several musical interludes, spanning about an hour and twenty minutes and broken into five acts. Kazembe’s evocative recitations acted upon the listener’s imagination; blues colored and molded the ensuing thoughts, giving an elaborative sonic structure to the spoken word. Kazembe had partnered with three musicians: Yosef Ben Israel on upright bass; Enoch Williamson on shakare, chimes, and several drums; and Eliel Sherman Storey, proprietor of Transition East, on two different saxophones. Named after a lost short story Wright had published in the Southern Review at age fifteen, the blues opera was conceived as a part of the ongoing Chicago Artists Month. Kazembe hopes that after the first four pilot performances of Voodoo—of which this night’s was the third—he can bring the show across the city and to progressively larger venues. “We were supposed to have some sisters up here doing double-dutch,” he explained to the room afterwards. “Another doing a painting.” Bigger spaces would mean more performers, and a chance to realize the multimedia choreography Kazembe had initially built into Voodoo’s overarching structure. In the show, Kazembe framed Richard Wright as a personal hero and source of inspiration. Wright, the creator of works such as Native Son, Black Boy, and The Man Who
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“Be young, beautiful, and black, black, black!” Was Almost a Man, migrated north to Chicago in 1927, eventually leaving for New York in 1937. Wright was a postal clerk by day and a restless writer by night. Voodoo attempts to give a shape and form to the kind of psychic education the author got from a decade here while coming of age. Despite its historical content, Voodoo doesn’t suppose a tidy break between the lived experience of Kazembe on the one hand and Wright on the other. Kazembe’s first act takes the audience back to a southern railroad depot, in the company of crickets, waiting for that “1am boat-train” to come. Kazembe’s a capella blending of the engine’s rumble (“katcha-katcha-katcha”) with a present-day El clattering overhead (“kata-kata-kata”) puts these two different vehicles for an emotional journey on a same-track collision course.
Every now and then the opera explodes into a cloud of loosely coordinated anecdotes. Over the performance, Kazembe creates a joint reality—vibrant, seemingly still-living Wright “haggles with James Crow behind” a present-day “cut-rate store.” The Lewis guns of twenties-era crooked cops inspire the same outrage as traffic officers who “just ain’t killing to be killing,” but figure “there must be something in the melanin” that makes black men bullet magnets. Kazembe’s Wright encountered a “sick body politic,” a rotten “corpus delecti,” as deceitful and dishonest yesterday as today. The affecting sights that Kazembe speaks into being transfix the listener, as well as the fictive Wright. Kazembe’s Wright is captivated by the physical mechanics of moving women, where “u is the initial velocity and a is the acceleration and x is miles—miles of smiles!” He conjures up young boys who “liberated potential dishwater from fire hydrants.” The third act’s poem, “Freedom Summer,” permutes the classic jump-rope cadence “Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack is dressed in black, black, black” into a potential takeaway for Wright’s time in Chicago: “Be young, beautiful, and black, black, black.” This jumble and crush of observations turns into a pressing desire to talk and narrate. In the second act, Kazembe switches out of
EDUCATION the loud, chest-clenching register of spoken word. He breaks into a breathless whisper, and turns to the musicians excitedly. “Shush, guys, don’t play so loud,” he insists. “I got to tell them about this part! Shush! I got to, I got to tell them about this part.” With this gesture, Voodoo makes a biographical argument about Wright. Although Wright may have written his greatest works in New York, he stored up a kind of spiritual soul food from the South Side. What Wright saw stirred him to action, and compelled him to write unique works that could contain this knowledge of his heritage as literature hadn’t before. Kazembe elaborated on Wright’s literary experiments after the show, stating that Wright had been influenced by a range of authors, even Shakespeare: “Shakespeare was just telling his own folk story.” Coming from the direction of a folk ethos, Kazembe’s insistence on calling Voodoo a blues opera seems strategic. A spoken word performance can capture the spirit of a grand historical moment—this birth of an artist— just as deftly as the Western European tradition we usually call “opera.” Animating the spoken word libretto with bass, sax, and African percussion highlights how spoken word is a rigorous vocal training in its own right. The slow evolution of a blues standards motif beneath Kazembe’s voice throws into relief his rhythm and beat, his measured enunciation—his long -s’s and emphatic plosives. The opera’s saxophone solos gesture to areas of ineffability, moments where Kazembe has to step down and see if Eliel Storey’s playing can finish the thought he started. The Voodoo of Hell’s Half-Acre fits itself into the tradition of Kazembe’s opening invocation. Kazembe takes an ancient orality in the context of the present and starts to develop a vision of the future, where Wright’s learning—and Kazembe’s own growing up—can be understood and treasured by everyone in an authentic, African register. The historical Wright grappled with deeply embedded cultural phenomena that white authors couldn’t ever conceive. Kazembe himself is trying to articulate the timeless virtues of a black Chicago through an operatic form that’s true to the heritage he stakes out in his ancestral prayer. Voodoo helps us lucidly imagine what it might mean for an older, wiser Wright to take stock of his experiences whilst waiting on another train platform, bound for New York. “Chi-ca-go,” Kazembe cries, repeating himself, lost in thought. “It’s black, it’s bitter, it’s sweet. Black, it’s bitter and sweet. Chicago’s black bittersweet memories.”
A Call to Pray Christian teachers’ organization prays for better schools
ellie mejia
BY CHRISTOPHER GOOD
“I
’m sorry, but not even Finland can fix this.” Last Saturday morning in the South Loop, a handful of educators and community leaders congregated to discuss Teachers Who Pray (TWP), a nonprofit that believes that Christian prayer can be used to fight the issues plaguing primary and secondary education. TWP founder and Chicago schoolteacher Marilyn Rhames contended that even the Nordic model beloved by many in the educational community couldn’t fix America’s public schools. While the conference addressed some questions, it also raised many others. Can God succeed where Finland (and the American education system) has failed? Rhames, a former journalist, felt inspired to become an educator after 9/11, and in 2009 she founded Teachers Who Pray to fight what she saw as the “spiritual deprivation [that] was wreaking havoc in schools.” As an education writer and New York Times contributor with masters’ degrees in both education and journalism, Rhames is as well-versed in educational issues as she is in the Biblical verses that she holds up as a solution. According to TWP Secretary Di-
ane Miller’s remarks at the conference, the dearth of religion in public schools “has...attacked the fiber of nurturing” in education. Teachers Who Pray prides itself on “taking education advocacy to the highest level”— which means looking not to CPS administrators for reform, but to Jesus Christ. In more concrete terms, Teachers Who Pray advocates for the formation of afterschool teacher prayer groups. Several teachers spoke of their positive experiences leading such groups, as well as the skepticism they faced from other teachers. As one teacher said, “They were snickering, but you bet they came to us when things got tough.” Despite the substantive body of legislation aimed at upholding religious neutrality in schools, Teachers Who Pray is not alone in supporting prayer in school settings. In 2014, North Carolina passed Senate Bill 370, a law that “clarified student rights to engage in prayer and religious activity,” and earlier this year, Chicago-based State Reps. Mary Flowers and LaShawn Ford proposed a bill, House Bill 0165, that would amend the Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act to allow “individually initiated, non-disruptive prayer...at any time during the school day.” But as an organization unequivocally
concerned with Christianity and proselytization, Teachers Who Pray is well aware of the legal challenges it faces. The organization’s ten central tenets highlight the fact that while “teacher-to-teacher prayer in school is absolutely legal,” the “U.S. Supreme Court has determined it illegal for a teacher to pray with students or in the presence of students while working in a public school.” At one point, Rhames noted that the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause bars Congress from “prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]” and directs it to “make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Within the classroom, this leaves Teachers Who Pray with little to stand on. As the conference’s PowerPoint conceded in bold red text: “Praying with students in class is not a wise strategy; it can get you fired.” At the conclusion of the conference, the attendees joined hands and shared a prayer. While the correlation between secularism and the deterioration of schools is far from universally agreed upon, it’s certain that educators face serious hardships, from administrative corruption scandals to rampant school closures. As Rhames said at the conference, this is true “even in Chicago— especially in Chicago.”
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FOOD
Café Draws Newcomers to Pullman An anticipated addition to a historic neighborhood BY SARA COHEN
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tanding near Pullman Café’s kitchen, as volunteers dashed to serve customers in a line stretching out the door, Blanca Ortiz observed the rush. The excitement was the product of many months’ anticipation, she said over the whirr of a blender. “Everyone here has been asking, ‘When’s it going to open? When’s it going to open?’ And now they’re bragging, ‘I got the first coffee!’” This was October 10, Pullman Café’s opening day. Visitors to Pullman, fresh from the annual House Tour, happily endured the wait alongside enthusiastic residents. Many passed the time in conversation, adding to the warm and welcoming atmosphere promised by the cozy furniture. Others perused murals and artwork in an alley behind the café. When the man behind it all, artist Ian Lantz, moved to Pullman in 2012, it didn’t take him long to realize something was missing. “Shortly after I bought a house, one of the first things I asked was where do people go for coffee?” Lantz said. “And the response was, ‘We don’t have anywhere around here.’” “Right now in this community this is the only place,” said Ortiz, who raised her six kids here and volunteers with the Pullman Youth Group and House Tour. “There’s no store here right now.” Originally constructed as an idealistic company town for workers at the Pullman Palace Car Co. in 1880, Pullman remains a testament to Chicago history. Today, the original residential area of Pullman houses a community that prides itself on preserving the neighborhood’s collaborative atmosphere and historical integrity. With 16,122 visitors to the site in 2014, its designation as a National Monument this past February has only added to its appeal; spokespeople at the Pullman State Historic Site have already noticed a significant rise in tourism. 12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
juliet eldred
“Since they’ve revived and turned into this landmark district area, that’s going to need to come with restaurants and other things to keep people here and draw people here,” said Hanna Anderson, a Washington Heights resident who came to the café after attending the House Tour. Lantz had similar thoughts. “I figured I would open the café just to have something here and hopefully spark other young entrepreneurs to come out this way and try to see the history and richness that the South Side has to offer.’” When Lantz first moved to Chicago’s North Side from Los Angeles in 2011 to do IT work for a law firm, he took on several local art projects. It wasn’t until he started mentoring Englewood kids in art that he first ventured to the South Side, and he was pleasantly surprised. “As far as the community,” he said, “it’s so strong, and anything happening—everybody just kind of embraces it and supports it.” Soon, Lantz came to Pullman to lead a series of community art projects, including parties showcasing local artwork and an alley mural project to engage neighborhood residents. It took longer to transform Lantz’s idea
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for the Pullman Café into reality, however. “I tried buying a building, but it didn’t work out, and in the meantime I was still doing my art shows, and my art started picking up,” he said. In October 2014, Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives (CNI) and Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago noticed Lantz’s efforts for the community, and they reached out to him to jumpstart the café’s construction. With CNI’s help, Lantz secured a microloan through Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago Microlending Institute and built the café within months. Lantz also partnered with other members of the community to complete the café. The Historic Pullman Foundation donated antique church pews for the interior. Lantz’s aunt and her daughter, who now work at the café full-time, handcrafted its wood furnishings. The furnishins were painted by employees of the Method soap factory, another newcomer brought to the historic district by CNI. As for the result of all these contributions, Ortiz has high hopes, and not just for the food. “More people are going to want to come here and buy houses here,” she said. “It will be a popular place.”
Among such newcomers was Anderson, who came to the café after reading about it in the Tribune and left impressed. “You can see with the wood and the exposed brick—it definitely creates an atmosphere that’s intimate.” She added, “I’m glad this is here. It’s something that was definitely needed in the community.” The community seems to agree: within its first couple days of business, items from the menu (which includes beverages, salads and sandwiches, home-baked lemon bars and other treats) began selling out, and the café closed for a day to recover. Apart from better preparation to meet such high demand, Lantz speculated that the future of the café will involve collaborations with local musicians, artists, poets, and other Pullman individuals and businesses. “I wanted to keep it as if you were to walk in one of the Pullman houses, and they invited you for a cup of coffee or a sandwich. I’m not gearing towards any specific crowd— I’m just opening my doors towards anybody, saying, ‘Welcome to Pullman.’” Pullman Café, 11208 S. St. Lawrence Ave. Tuesday–Friday, 10am–7pm; Saturday 10am–6pm; Sunday 10am–3pm. $1-$8.
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Across 1. Money owed 5. Show rating of 32-down, often 9. Less than right? 14. The E in EGOT 15. Cry out 16. Rock or rap, e.g. 17. Each 18. Writer Sarah ___ Jewell 19. Texas city that's head quarters for Pizza Hut 20. Amenity at a well-located downtown hotel 23. Homage 24. Terminus of a famous trail 28. ___-haw 29. A bad doctor, maybe 32. Mont Blanc, e.g. 33. Suffix with percent 34. Medium in bio labs 35. En ___ (fencer's cry) 38. Funnyman Brooks 39. Chew out 40. Baseball's Felipe 41. Schlep 42. Sounds of relief 43. "No running, you'll slip!" e.g. 46. Day: Sp.
49. Agree out of court 50. State of the Union, e.g. 52. Furry foot on fifty-fifth 55. Islamic decree 58. Switch's partner 59. Drink with two lizards in its logo 60. Big name in pest control 61. Trig function 62. German donkey 63. Wetland or rain forest 64. Walk wearily 65. Inform Down 1. Shortage 2. Order of the British ___ 3. Unmemorable low-bud get film 4. Laid-back 5. Ballroom dance 6. Diverse 7. Look after 8. Away from the wind 9. Current unit 10. Dead-end streets 11. Made in ___ 1 12. Can material 13. "Green" prefix 21. Russian money 22. Portend
If nothing else, Henry Kissinger’s political career was controversial—a topic Greg Grandin will explore as he talks about his new book, Kissinger’s Shadow, which theorizes that Kissinger’s policies paved the way for America’s ongoing overseas conflicts. (Christopher Good)
Painting the Path to ACCESS
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Seminary Co-op, 5751 S. Woodlawn Ave. Wednesday, November 4, 6:30pm. Free. (773) 752-4381. semcoop.com
25. Type of dancer 26. Spoken 27. Mathlete, stereotypically 30. Prolonged attack 31. Sick 32. Mature sibling of Cartoon Network 35. Openings 36. Lotion ingredient 37. Cheer (for) 38. Joe 39. Our aquarium 41. In ___ of 42. Checked for fiscal compliance 44. Everett of "Citizen Kane" 45. Vegas attraction 46. Oust 47. Novelist Allende 48. Also 51. Turn back to zero 53. Recipe amt. 54. Flag down, as a cab 55. Pocket watch accessory 56. Bush spokesman Fleischer 57. Fight ender, briefly
UIC Latino Cultural Center, Lecture Center B2, 803 S. Morgan St. Wednesday, November 4, noon-3pm. (331) 996-3095. studentaccessil@gmail.com On November 11, UIC students will lead a march in support of the Student ACCESS bill, designed to allow undocumented students to apply for higher education scholarships in Illinois. A week earlier, join this workshop to learn more about the bill, and deck out your kicks in preparation for the action. (Christian Belanger)
Household Workers Unite! UIC Student Center East, Room: Illinois B, 750 S. Halsted Ave. Thursday, November 5, 11am-12:30pm. (312) 355-5922. socialjustice.uic.edu Traditional histories of the labor movement have focused on the organization of workers in factories; domestic work, often done by women and people of color, has often been ignored. In her most recent book, Premilla Nadasen unearths the movement those workers built. (Adam Thorp)
Moments of Justice: Arts and Renaissance Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S. Morgan St. Friday, November 6, 6pm-9pm. $80. (312) 435-1201. momentsofjustice.com Chicago Freedom School pays homage to local activists and social justice movements in an Arts and Renaissance themed fundraiser for the School’s youth leadership programs. The event, which explores the influence of art on justice movements, in
Zona Abierta: Environmental Justice in the Little Village Community UIC Latino Cultural Center, Lecture Center B2, 803 S. Morgan St. Tuesday, November 10, 3:30pm-5pm. Free. (312) 996-3095. latinocultural.uic.edu Join UIC’s Latino Cultural Center and student organizations next Tuesday to discuss environmental justice in Little Village and to learn how to get involved. The program includes activist and historian Antonio Reyes Lopez’s presentation on the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization’s sustainability plan, and a “communal dialogue” led by UIC’s Freshwater Lab scholars. (Sonia Schlesinger)
The Role of TIFs in North Lawndale
St. Agatha’s Church, 3151 W. Douglas Blvd. Wednesday, November 11, 6pm-8pm. Free. Email frankbergh@gmail.com for more information. tifreports.com St. Agatha’s Parish and Tom Tresser of the TIF Illumination Project will lead a discussion about Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and the allotment of taxpayer money in the 24th Ward. All attendees will leave with a free poster and a greater understanding of a difficult acronym. (Christopher Good)
We Too Sing America Seminary Co-op, 5751 S. Woodlawn Ave. Tuesday, November 17, 6pm. (773) 7524381. semcoop.com In I Hear America Singing, Walt Whitman hears the gruff, virile sounds of working people; in I, Too, Langston Hughes asserts that he, “the darker brother”, sings America too. Deepa Iyer’s book We Sing America continues this history of expansion by reflecting on the American experience of South Asian, Arab and Sikh people in a time of discrimination and tension. (Adam Thorp)
MUSIC
Babes Reggies Chicago, 2105 S. State St. Wednesday, November 4, 8pm. $10. 21+. (312) 949-
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0120. reggieslive.com If Wednesday’s got you down, cut loose with some candy-coated ballads from Babes and some wistful indie tunes from opening acts Modern Vices and Strange Faces. No, not “Babe: The Gallant Pig”— rather, Babes, the Los Angeles baroque pop outfit. (Christopher Good)
Eric Roberson
Jimbo Delta Reggies Chicago, 2105 S. State St. Friday, November 6, 5:30pm. Free. 21+. reggieslive. com Self-described as “true Americana,” blues musician Jimbo Delta presents classic delta blues combined with electric guitar and quick beats, blending new and old in a heartfelt appeal to the roots of blues. Jimbo released his debut Hypnotized a coule of years after arriving in Chicago in the late nineties, and will perform at Reggies this Friday. (Clyde Schwab)
Nanette Frank Mo Better Jazz Chicago, 2423 E. 75th St. Friday, November 6, 7pm. $10 donation. (773) 741-6254. mobetterjazzchicago.us A multitalented jazz musician, Nanette Frank has worked with Billy Branch, Brian Culbertson, Steve Cole and even Crest Multi-Care. This Friday, come see her live up to her upcoming album’s title, Revitalizing Jazz. (CJ Fraley)
Anjali Ray at The Promontory The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Saturday, November 7, 8pm. $50-$75. (312) 801-2100. promontorychicago.com Anjali Ray weaves her experience in classical and jazz piano and Indian Hindustani vocals together to create an emotional and haunting style of music. Her concert on Saturday is a benefit for the Kalapriya Foundation Center for Indian Performing Arts and the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism. ( Jonathan Poilpre)
Somi The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Sunday, November 8, doors 1pm, show 2pm. $17 standing room, $20-$40 tables. (312) 801-2100. promontorychicago.com 14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
Somi, one of the greatest voices in contemporary jazz and Huffington Post-proclaimed “High Priestess of Soul,” will bring her globetrotting blend of R&B and afropop to the Promontory for an intimate matinée performance. As she sings in “Ankara Sundays,” stop by and forget about things for a while. (Christopher Good)
The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Saturday, November 14, doors 8pm, show 9:30pm. $30 general admission. 21+. (312) 753-5700. theshrinechicago.com With the most soul this side of Motown comes Eric Roberson (aka Erro), a singer and songwriter who is perhaps singlehandedly keeping R&B alive. It’s like someone put D’Angelo and Dwele in a blender, only impossibly smoother. (Christopher Good)
Jeezy Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport St. Tuesday, November 17. Doors 8pm, show 9pm. $48 standing room, $58 seats. 21+. (312) 5263851. thaliahallchicago.com Atlanta trap juggernaut Jeezy—aka Pastor Young—will be stopping at Thalia Hall to deliver a “one-of-a-kind experience” in support of his upcoming album, Church in These Streets. Street disciples should expect powerful sermons propelled by equally powerful beats. (Christopher Good)
KRS-One The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Sunday, November 29, doors 10pm. $22.50 early bird, $32.50 general admission. 21+. (312) 7535700. theshrinechicago.com As one of the most politically active and critically acclaimed MCs of the 1990s, KRS-One blazed the trail for socially conscious rap with landmark albums such as Criminal Minded and Return of the Boom Bap. Now, he’s touring the nation, and stopping in Chicago along the way. The self-proclaimed “Most Respected Name in Hip Hop Kulture” has plenty left to say. (Christopher Good)
Ryan Leslie at the Shrine The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Saturday, December 5, 2015, doors open at 9pm. $32.50. 18+. theshrinechicago.com
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Producer Ryan Leslie’s resume is impressive—coming from Seattle and graduating from Harvard at nineteen, he’s written and produced tracks for Britney Spears, Beyoncé, and New Edition as well as the 2006 Cassie’s hit “Me&U.” The crooning R&B and hip-hop artist will warm up Chicago on December 5 at the Shrine. (Clyde Schwab)
VISUAL ARTS
Rear View with Road Cut Slow Pony Project, 1745 W. 18th St. Opening reception Thursday, November 5, 7pm-9pm. Open through December 13; hours to be determined. Free. (815) 575-2023. In “Rear View with Road Cut,” Liz Ensz embarks on a journey into the living landscape of memory. Through a combination of media, including sculpture installations and performance art, Ensz explores the intimate relationship between space and time, and geography and history, venturing to retrieve the forgotten past of the human species. ( Jasmin Liang)
Traveler’s Sketchbook Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St. November 6–December 6. Monday–Friday, 9am–9pm; Saturday, 9am–5pm; Sunday, 1pm–4pm. Reception Sunday, November 15, 2pm–4pm. Free. (773) 445-3838. beverlyartcenter.org The Beverly Arts Center will host a reception for George C. Clark’s new exhibition, “Traveler’s Sketchbook.” The picturesque plein air sketches draw inspiration from locales near and far, but consistently charm. (Christopher Good)
In Our Own Words: Youth Development and the Arts Austin Town Hall, 5610 W. Lake St. Saturday, November 7, 1pm–3pm. Free. (773) 947-7378. chicagoparkdistrict.com Who better to facilitate discussion on the influence of art in kids’ lives than kids themselves? Youth from local arts and Chicago Park District programs will lead this conversation, which extends from Truman College’s “Arts in the Parks: The People’s Studio” exhibition. People of all ages are encouraged to attend. (Sara Cohen)
Paul McCarthy Drawings The Renaissance Society, 5811 S. Ellis Ave., Room 418. Opening reception Sunday, November 8, 4pm–7pm. Open November 8–January 24. Tuesday–Friday, 10am–5pm; Saturday–Sunday, 12pm–5pm. Free. (773) 702-8670. renaissancesociety.org Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what’s a show that’s sure to enthrall? Containing works from McCarthy’s 2009 “White Snow” series and 2013 “WS” installation, this exhibition presents deconstructed themes and dark elements from the Snow White fairytale. An opening reception with the artist, a curators’ walkthrough, and video screenings will contribute to the experience. (Sara Cohen)
Jefferson Pinder: Onyx Odyssey Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. November 8–January 24. Monday–Thursday, 9am–8pm; Friday–Saturday, 9am–5pm; Sunday, 12pm–5pm. Free. (773) 324-5520. hydeparkart.org In “Onyx Odyssey,” interdisciplinary artist Jefferson Pinder examines the nuances of the black male figure in American history and culture. Through video, sculpture, and light installations, Pinder asks probing questions about racial identity and resistance. (Ellen Hao)
Giuliana Bruno Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Thursday, November 12, 5pm. Free. (773) 702-2787. arts.uchicago.edu In this talk, professor Giuliana Bruno, author of Surface: Matters of Aesthetics, Materiality, and Media, will discuss her latest research on the nature of materiality. In a time of ever-evolving visual mediums, Bruno examines the relationships between materials and media across the arts. (Ellen Hao)
STAGE AND SCREEN
Dream State: an improvised audiovisual performance Black Cinema House, 7200 S. Kimbark Ave. Thursday, November 5, 7pm–9pm. (312) 857-5561. rebuild-foundation.squarespace. com
CALENDAR Percussion, video, and 16mm film collaborate to create an eclectic journey for the senses. A live jazz band will improvise a unique soundtrack to accompany the experimental films being shown. Expect a night of artistic risks and audiovisual stimulation, inspired by the Chicago Architectural Biennial. (Ada Alozie)
Agamemnon Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. November 5–December 6. $38, discounts available for seniors, faculty, and students. (773) 7534472. courttheatre.org In the mood for tragedy? Renowned scholar Nicholas Rudall’s world premiere translation of Aeschylus’s Agamemnon brings back Sandra Marquez and Mark Montgomery from last year’s Iphigenia in Aulis as Clytemnestra and Agamemnon for Court’s “groundbreaking” second installment of the Greek Cycle. The gods invite our witness. (Rurik Baumrin)
Chi-Town Multicultural Film Fest Black Cinema House, 7200 S. Kimbark Ave. Friday, November 6, 6:30pm–8pm. Free. RSVP available. (312) 857-5561. rebuild-foundation.squarespace.com Hang out with local filmmakers at the red carpet premiere of the second annual CMFF, including Olayinka Hassan, El Porter, Mary Horan, Jessica Estelle Huggins, and Allen Nettles. Enjoy special screenings of documentaries, dramas, animation, and LGBTQ stories and stick around for the awards ceremony. Seating is limited. (Rurik Baumrin)
The Sunshine Boys Staged Reading Augustana Lutheran Church, 5500 S. Woodlawn Ave. Friday, November 6, 8pm. $5. hydeparkcommunityplayers.com This duo is exploring new frontiers of laughter and friendship. Scott Malpass and Wylie Crawford will act as the begrudgingly reunited Al and Willie in this staged reading of portions of The Sunshine Boys with Hyde Park Community Players. The reading will be followed by a discussion. ( Jena Yang)
The Nutcracker Suite Hamilton Cultural Center, 513 W. 72nd St. Saturday, November 7, 1:15pm and 4:15pm. Free. (312) 747-6174. chicagoparkdistrict. com Halloween may be over, but the holiday season looms. Ease into the celebrations with Clara and the Sugar Plum Fairy at the annual Joffrey Academy of Dance production of the classic Nutcracker Suite ballet. ( Jena Yang)
Borders and Islands Cultura in Pilsen, 1900 S. Carpenter St. Sunday, November 8, 12pm–1pm. $5. (312) 494-9509. chicagohumanities.org Curious about the intersections between sexuality and ethnicity through a transnational lens? Come hear Achy Obejas, a prize-winning writer, translator, and critic, discuss how her experience as a Cuban lesbian woman has influenced her work. A multimedia bilingual performance called “Crossing Paths,” performed by first-generation youth, will start. (Ada Alozie)
The Selfish Giant Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St. Sunday, November 8, 2pm. Adults $22, children $12. (773) 445-3838. beverlyartcenter.org It’s the classic case of a grumpy old man chasing children off his grass—with a few huge twists. For one, the beautiful garden withers until the marionette children sneak back to bring spring with them. For another, the grumpy old man is a giant. Come take in the possibilities of puppets, lest the giant should come scolding. (Anne Li)
Girlhood Black Cinema House, 7200 S. Kimbark Ave. Sunday, November 8, 4pm–6pm. (312) 8575561. rebuild-foundation.squarespace.com Come hear what film journalist Sergio Mims has to say about race and history in Girlhood, a French film about a teenage girl in a poor Paris suburb. Mims also writes for Indiewire’s Shadow and Act, a blog devoted to the African diaspora featured in Girlhood, so the discussion after the film should be worthwhile. (Anne Li)
NOVEMBER 4, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15