December 4, 2013 by South Side Weekly

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY DECEMBER 4, 2013 ¬ STUDENT LED, NEIGHBORHOOD READ ¬ SINCE 2003 ¬ SOUTHSIDEWEEKLY.COM ¬ FREE

Off the Table

Fe d tak eral ou e a cut t s b sta of fo ite mp od s

PARK PATROLS, CITY BUDGET, REDMOON PAGEANT, AFTER REAL TRUTH, FLECKS COFFEE

& MORE INSIDE

2 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ DECEMBER 4, 2013

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 Push ‘Em Up

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is a newsprint magazine produced by students at the University of Chicago, for and about the South Side. The Weekly is distributed across the South Side each Wednesday of the academic year. In fall 2013, the Weekly reformed itself as an independent, student-directed organization. Previously, the paper was known as the Chicago Weekly. Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor

Harrison Smith Bea Malsky

Senior Editors John Gamino, Spencer Mcavoy Politics Editor Osita Nwanevu Stage & Screen Hannah Nyhart Editor Music and Zach Goldhammer Video Editor Visual Arts Editor Katryce Lassle Associate Online Sharon Lurye and Contributing Editor Contributing Editors Ari Feldman, Josh Kovensky, Meaghan Murphy Photo Editor Lydia Gorham Layout Editor Olivia Dorow Hovland Online Editor Gabi Bernard Senior Writer Stephen Urchick Staff Writers Dove Barbanel, Jake Bittle, Bess Cohen, Emma Collins, Lauren Gurley, Emily Holland, Jason Huang, Jack Nuelle, Rob Snyder Staff Photographer Camden Bauchner Staff Illustrators Hanna Petroski, Isabel Ochoa Gold Business Manager

Harry Backlund

5706 S. University Ave. Reynolds Club 018 Chicago, IL 60637 SouthSideWeekly.com editor@southsideweekly.com stagescreen@southsideweekly.com music@southsideweekly.com visualarts@southsideweekly.com

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Cover photo by Luke White.

In a pair of oddly symmetric heists, an unnamed couple has stolen seventy-two bras from a South Barrington Victoria’s Secret. The thieves lifted thirty-six bras on November 9, and returned this past weekend to take another $1,771 worth. We assume this is because, having skipped an expert fitting, they discovered they’d made off with the wrong size. Other theories include the desire—fueled by holiday spirit—to outfit seventy-two Angels. The recent bust is just the latest in a long line: all told, the store has suffered $6,390 in stolen merchandise this fall at the hands of various thieves. Sure, they’re criminals, but at the end of the day, they’re just trying to support themselves.

It’s Not Nice on Ice

Ex-Offenders Offend Union Prez

Marriage in the City

In March, Mayor Emanuel announced plan to quadruple the CTA’s ex-offenders employment program, promising to give job opportunities to more than 200 former convicts. By the end of December, however, there will be exactly zero CTA jobs for ex-offenders, as the CTA has reneged on its extension of the program. CTA spokesman Steve Mayberry and Robert Kelly, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308, seem to be engaged in a game of finger-pointing over who’s to blame for the program’s demise. For now, picketers seem to have chosen Kelly as their target strawman, lining up in front of ATU offices to protest the loss of the already slim job opportunities for former convicts. In Kelly’s words, though, “they’re barking up the wrong tree.”

Starting this year, Chicagoans will have to pay to ice skate at the Chicago Park District’s outdoor ice rinks, four of which are on the South Side. The supposedly “nominal” increase forces adults to pay $3 to skate where they once had to pay $0. This further proves the cold-heartedness of the folks who’re designing this year’s budget, where the skating price hike was induced. Thankfully, the city retained some trace of its humanity: the children and students were spared, and can still skate for free. Adults can also still skate for free at the McCormick Tribune Ice Rink in Millennium Park. For now, that is. As with any battle for social equity, the fight for gay marriage in Illinois did not end with the state legislation’s favorable 61-54 vote in November. Christine Irvine, a student at Loyola University, has started a petition to ask the school’s administration to allow gay marriages on campus. She is planning her own wedding, and wants her school to be the backdrop for the big day. Loyola, a Jesuit university, has a policy against same-sex marriage ceremonies happening on campus, though this stance is of questionable legality due to the new law. Irvine hopes to push the school to live up to its own goals of embracing equality for all, and probably to avoid further wedding-related headaches. ¬

IN THIS ISSUE after real truth

park patrol

“Everybody who comes into my life, I make them a robot and put them into a story line.”

“The September shooting at Cornell Square Park brought violence in parks to the forefront of the city’s lauren gurley........4 crime prevention efforts.”

katherine sacco....6

redmoon

budget passes

food stamps cuts

“We highlight the major changes and most interesting numbers from the 130page budget document.”

“Just give me my forty acres “Welcome to Depression-era and a mule, and leave me rural America, where adolescent brutality looms alone.” christian belanger.....8 larger than name-calling.”

jake bittle..............7 mca chicago show

“ You crack the code in the first ten minutes. You crack the show.”

“Morris said she was, in fact, aware of Chicago’s many neighborhoods, but stephen urchick..11 wasn’t at all interested in filming them.”

paige pendarvis....12

truman capote

stephen urchick..10

fleck’s coffee

“One of our missions is to enrich the community, not to take out withdrawals and make no deposits.”

dove barbanel.....14

CORRECTIONS

An October 30 cover story on the Curtis Black Quartet incorrectly identified the childhood conducting experience of drummer Doug Mitchell. Mitchell was invited to study under CSO percussionist Gordon Peters; he was not, as a previous correction stated, invited to study under the conductor of the Chicago Youth Symphony.

Last week’s cover story on the Hyde Park graffiti wall misstated the history of the “McMobil” site that the graffiti wall abuts. A McDonald’s and Mobil gas station occupied the site’s lots together until McDonald’s moved to 52nd Street in 2004. DECEMBER 4, 2013 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3

In His Image An interview with Joshua Robinson of After Real Truth BY LAUREN GURLEY

siddhesh mukerji

o r Chicago artist Joshua Robinson, After Real Truth—his clothing, toy, and comic book company—is a more than a job. It’s a futuristic spiritual world and a way of life. A Chatham native, Robinson, who also goes by the alias “J. Bot,” started After Real Truth as a hobby in 2005 after graduating from Westwood College with a degree in computer animation. It has since exploded into what Robinson describes as a community-wide “movement” toward spiritual enlightenment. With his wife’s help, the loquacious twenty-seven-year-old makes his designs 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

on the computer, often placing historical figures and art into a digital, futuristic format, then painting these designs on baseball hats, hoodies, T-shirts, and gym shoes or sculpting them out of clay. Inspired by a diverse medley of African and religious art and iconography, Robinson uses everything from Egyptian pyramids and the Buddha to Da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” and the Star of David in his designs. As a part of this “ life project,” Robinson has also created a cartoon world where his friends, family, and other “ followers” are given robot identities and placed into a narrative about

¬ DECEMBER 4, 2013

finding spiritual truth. Until recently, After Real Truth was based out of a store in Auburn Gresham. Today Robinson works out of The House of Culture, the Midwest regional headquarters for the Universal Zulu Nation in Chatham. Taking a break between projects, Robinson talked to the Weekly about the origin of After Real Truth, the absence of education about African heritage in South Side schools, and the trials of running a clothing line in Chicago.

How did After Real Truth start? It started off as a life project. I came into it when I was about nineteen and my daughter was just born. That’s when I started to look into who I was. I was thinking about a lot of things, like what it was I actually want to do in life and whether or not I wanted to have a nine-to-five job or actually pursue a career in my own arts. Where did the name After Real Truth come from? What does it mean?

PORTRAITS

The whole thing to me is that in life you have a truth, which is whatever your passion is. My passion is art. I feel like my truth in life is art. Somebody else might feel like their truth in life is writing. Everybody in life is ultimately after their own real truth. And when you actually break After Real Truth down, it’s A-R-T, art. What role does African and religious history play in your work? I do all different cultures, but I take a lot from the history of my own people, because that’s where I feel like our power is and where our spirituality lies, in our history. I try to incorporate a lot of stuff especially when it comes to Ethiopia, you know, because there’s a lot of culture that’s missed out on because we just can’t see our own art. I went to school with a lot of Hispanic kids and I was always wondering why the Hispanic kids were drawing Aztec stuff. They know where their heritage lies. And it’s unfortunate that I don’t see a lot of African-American kids doing their own artwork from Africa, because there’s a lot of stuff.

helped me too. That’s pretty crazy. Where do you find the people who become characters in your comic book? I meet these people from just walking around on the street and talking to them. They talk to me on the bus and they get to know me because I give out my number to a lot of people. I give out my card. At the House of Culture, a lot of people walk in. I am always influenced because there are a lot of spiritual and powerful people walking around. And a lot of these people don’t even know that they’re powerful. Who is “J. Bot”? J. Bot is one of the alter egos that I have for myself. J. Bot is the representation of my higher consciousness, my soul, and his twin brother is called El. And he’s a representation of God. We are all actually like God in a physical form, you know. Like the Bible says, we are all created in his image. So are you religious? I’m more of a spiritual person, but I look at a little bit of everything. I make my own judgements.

But you aren’t restricted to African history, right?

What are the challenges of being a business owner on the South Side?

Oh no. I do all sorts of stuff. All different cultures. And everybody who comes into my life, I make them a robot and put them into a story line, and the storyline is pretty much showing how people around me influence me to do better, you know? There’s actually a comic book I have been working on with robots.

I try not to really look at the hard times, but aw man, they are hard. People always want something free from me for their friends. They’re like “Hey, can I get a free shirt?” and it’s like, “Support me. Support me.”

Where does your interest in comics and robots come from?

I hope that someday soon I can get a charity walk going. I hope to have a big old event where people just come and give some time even if they don’t got no money. Time is more important than money. And hopefully, I’ll be able to start my own apprenticeship program for kids all over the place. These kids out here need to learn this stuff. There are a lot of people struggling for jobs. I feel like there are kids out there who would like to be taught if they had the opportunity. ¬

Aw man, I’ve been interested in comic books since I was a little kid and I’ve always loved robots. And as I get really deep into it, I start to see more of a representation in the robots as to where we are now with the technology and how I feel like a lot of people actually are being controlled, like people don’t even really understand that their own lives are more like robots. Technology controls their life. “The Matrix” really

What is your long-term vision for After Real Truth?

DECEMBER 4, SOUTH 2013 ¬SIDE SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5 DECEMBER 4, 2013 ¬ WEEKLY 5

Reclaiming the Parks New CPD initiatives attempt to combine policing with a claim to community BY KATHERINE SACCO

s the clock counts down to the end of the first quarter, a three-point shot by a player in red bounces off the rim and the blue team gains possession. But they do not have enough time to carry the ball back down the court, and the buzzer sounds just as their Hail Mary from half-court falls short. The players hustle back to their respective benches, with the blue team up by four. On this mild Friday night in November, Jackson Park’s gymnasium is filled with the clamor of basketball games, part of a weekly Chicago Parks Department league. In the bleachers, kids waiting to play in the next game cheer on and taunt their friends. Isaiah Johnson is waiting to play point guard for his team. He comes here every week, even though he does not live nearby. He does not mince words in explaining what he likes about the program. “It’s free tournaments,” he says. Just the night before, there was a shooting at a gas station a few blocks away. But when asked whether he ever worries about violence in the park, Isaiah shakes his head. He feels safe here, in the Jackson Park field house., surrounded by his teammates and friends. On other evenings, parks across the city can become sites of crime and violence. In an effort to reduce such crime and boost enrollment in Parks Department programming, the Chicago Police Department rolled out a new policing initiative this past November dubbed “Play Safe, Stay Safe.” Under the “Play Safe, Stay Safe” strategy, twenty parks have received extra nighttime police patrols. Pairs of officers patrol in four-hour shifts during the gap between the departure of park staff and closing time. Officers are paid overtime, with funds from the Chicago Parks District budget. The police department bills the initiative as an expansion of both existing po-

lice patrols in parks and their Operation Impact strategy. Since February, Operation Impact has put foot patrols of officers working overtime on the streets of twenty high-crime areas. According to CPD, murders have decreased by forty-four percent and shootings have decreased by forty-five percent in the target

Though the police department has not announced which parks are receiving extra patrols, the list almost certainly includes parks on the South Side. “We haven’t disclosed the parks, because we don’t want to advertise where the

isabel ochoa gold

areas since the strategy was implemented. But the September shooting of thirteen people at Cornell Square Park in Back of the Yards has brought violence in the South Side’s parks to the forefront of the city’s crime prevention efforts.

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additional officers will be,” CPD spokesman Adam Collins wrote in an email, just before the program began. “The parks were selected based on crime trends, and also based on needs as identified by the Parks District.” Jackson Park’s sprawling 542.89 lakefront acres are currently patrolled sev-

en days a week by off-duty police officers working as Park District security, as well as on-duty CPD officers for whom the park is part of their patrol area. The officers sign-in and make rounds by car. “We have pretty good coverage,” said park supervisor Bobbie Beckam. “During the week somebody might call off and I might miss one or two nights, but they’re always here on the weekends.” There have been no incidents of crime or violence during Beckam’s one-month tenure as park supervisor. “So far, so good,” he hedged. Another CPD initiative, Operation: Wake Up!, aims to encourage neighbors to reclaim their parks from gang violence through the organization of evening community events, like cookouts. Wake Up! events have been held successfully at Cornell Square Park and at Merrill Playground Park in South Deering, where three teenagers were shot in early October. Beckam thinks both the parks department’s Friday and Saturday night teen basketball league, Windy City Hoops, and the additional police presence in Jackson Park, are helpful and complementary deterrents to crime. “I believe if you give youth an outlet, it’ll keep them from the mischief of the streets,” he said. “That’s what we’re doing and it’s working.” Inside the Jackson Park gymnasium, a small crowd makes a claim to community, with their attention fixed on the basketball court. The boys who are playing are in wildly different stages of growth; one teen towers a foot about all the rest, a clear shooting advantage. The court, though dilapidated and lined by cheap blue maps, echoes with animated calls from the benches and bleachers. “Look alive!” “Get back!” “Keep your hands up!” “For real!” ¬

POLITICS

Chicago City Budget: Key Numbers The City Council passed Mayor Emanuel’s 2014 budget 45-5 on November 26. In spite of debates over controversial items such as distribution of police funding and an increased cigarette tax, only one South Side alderman, Ricardo Muñoz, voted against the budget. Below, we highlight the major changes and most interesting numbers picked out from the 130-page budget document. BY JAKE BITTLE

$339

million: Current budget deficit. Through major spending cuts, closings, and efficiencies such as the reconfiguring of the trash collection system, Mayor Emanuel has been able to cut down the projected budget deficit by more than half

$790 million: Projected 2014 budget deficit when Rahm took office

$8,672.1 billion: 2014 budget

$46,877

-$34,074,086: Change in spending on “city development” from 2013 to 2014

45,000: Number of CPS children who will now have access to eyewear and eye exams. $121 million: Amount spent on the Head Start Chicago’s median household and Early Head Start child development proThe funds for this initiative are expected to income, compared to $55,735 in grams come from the increased tax on cigarettes. Illinois The increase in revenue generated by “speed enforcement devices” in school zones will 700: Blocks on which CDOT will seal sidewalk be allocated to CPS for summer and af- cracks in 2014, up from 2013’s 400 ter-school programs, among others $31,640,000: Amount allocated for construction of new Central Loop Bus Rapid Transit $48 million: Amount allocated for con- and the Union Transportation Center struction of extended downtown Riverwalk from State to Lake Streets. The proposed expansion of the current Riverwalk would include floating gardens, fishing piers, restaurants, 2006: Year since which all aldermen have been required to complete an online ethics course and kayak rental stations for kayaking on the Chicago River. Mayor Emanuel announced plans for this expansion of the Riverwalk in October 2012 443: Number of times the word “Chicago” appears in the 2014 Chicago budget $76 million: Projected 2014 increase in revenue from “fines, forfeitures, and penalties,” due to parking fine hike $24 million: Amount saved by phasing out healthcare benefits for some retirees 300: Number of businesses that will be aided by Chicago’s microlending initiative by 2016 $1,053,747,571: Amount of funding allocated to the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Patrol. The police department, with a total budget allocation of $1.3 billion, makes up almost a seventh of Chicago’s total spending

18,000

Square footage of the Whole Foods to be constructed on 63rd and Halsted. It is hoped that the store will help relieve what has commonly been described as a “food desert” in Englewood

100

Number of jobs this is expected to bring to the Englewood neighborhood

$754,381: Amount of the Department of Law’s funding that comes from sewer funds 4: new airlines servicing O’Hare in 2013, to Berlin, Qatar, Vienna, and Beijing 9.7 million: Number of “books or other resources” that the Chicago Public Library system circulates $5 million: Amount allocated for construction of new Chinatown library $53.4 million: Amount of money generated in 2012-2013 from “fiscal discipline” $52,841,661: Amount allocated for HIV/AIDS prevention

556: Number of times the word “budget” appears in the 2014 Chicago budget $1.03 billion: Revenue from O’Hare Airport operations in 2012 $249.1 million: Revenue from Midway Airport operations in 2012 $18,314,327: Amount allocated for bridge management $481,035: Funds allocated in budget to provide “general support to the Executive”

11.3% 10.2%

Chicago’s unemployment rate in 2011 Chicago’s unemployment rate in 2012

$54,860,000: Amount allocated for worker’s compensation in 2014

cents: Increase in per-pack cigarette tax in 2014. This will dramatically increase city revenues, but certain aldermen believe it will do more harm than good. Brendan Reilly of the 42nd Ward, for example, said he worried that the tax would cause smokers to leave Illinois to buy cigarettes

$3,465,750: Amount allocated for a new Stony Island cycling track from 69th to 77th Streets $37.5 million: Amount allocated for new Washington and Wabash “L” station 475: Number of Divvy bikeshare stations in Chicago by end of 2014 $19,500,000: amount spent to construct new Green Line station at Cermak

DECEMBER DECEMBER 4, 2013 ¬ 4, SOUTH 2013 ¬SIDE SOUTH WEEKLY SIDE WEEKLY 7 7

Off the Table Federal cuts take a bite out of food stamps BY CHRISTIAN BELANGER

luke white

very Saturday from ten to one, the basement of Hyde Park Union Church, at 56th and Woodlawn, becomes a food pantry, distributing groceries and providing information on nutrition and health programs. As part of the Hyde Park and Kenwood Hunger Programs, the pantry operates on an annual budget of $110,000, most of which is raised through private donations. The church’s staff administers the pantry, but it’s manned by volunteers. On this particular day, a bureaucratic-looking woman shuffles through a box of manila folders, looking for the right one, while children dart around in weather-beaten windbreakers, weaving past legs and furniture. Dingy, unheated, with all the allure and charm of a Cold War fallout shelter, the church basement is

a bit of a grim place. In order to receive food, individuals are required to provide ID for everyone in their household and prove residence within the area bounded by Cottage Grove, Lake Michigan, and 39th and 60th Streets. Visits are limited to one every four weeks. Even with these restrictions, Lee Stapleton, a social worker whose weekly presence is paid for by the Hunger Programs, says there has been “a precipitous climb” in the number of people coming in to collect food over the past couple of years. Alvin Palmer, a volunteer, recounts that where there used to be six or seven people coming in when the pantry opened, now there are lines of “twenty or more.” Both mention the fact that the pantry has begun to run out of food more quickly. Many families now re-

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ceive less as a result. Part of what has contributed to this recent increase in hunger is undoubtedly the growing number of people living at or below the poverty line ($23,550 for a family of four), presumably as a result of the economic recession. According to a study by the Social IMPACT Research Center, a non-profit that studies poverty in Illinois, the four Chicago community areas with the highest percentage of residents living in extreme poverty are all located on the South Side (Riverdale, Burnside, Englewood, and Washington Park). The same study also showed that over the last ten years, the poverty rate has increased across almost all of the South Side. Pullman, for example, contains approximately the same number of people living in poverty as ten

years ago; due to population decline, however, the rate of poverty has actually increased by four percentage points, to 26.8 percent. Many of these recent increases stand in sharp contrast to the trends of the 1990s. Census data shows that from 1990 to 2000, fewer than one-third of South Side neighborhoods experienced poverty rate increases of more than 2.4 percent, and more than a quarter of neighborhoods lowered their poverty rate.

n an effort to combat the rise of hunger cases, the 2009 stimulus bill expanded the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as the food stamp program. Increased funding for SNAP allowed it to provide more benefits and increased coverage for its recipients;

FOOD a U.S. Department of Agriculture report showed that a household of four experienced a 27.2 percent increase in monthly benefits, from $294 to $374. As more people received more benefits, the cost of the program nearly doubled, growing from $33.2 billion to $78.4 billion in the past five years. On October 31, however, Congress allowed the federal expansion of SNAP to expire, rejecting Democratic proposals to renew this part of the stimulus and, in the process, cutting food stamp benefits for approximately forty-seven million Americans. According to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research and policy institute in D.C., these reductions will lead to a $5 billion drop in food stamp distribution in 2014. This means that many families will be forced to cut their food budgets, as most individuals will receive less than $1.40 per meal, while households of four face a reduction of $36 a month. At the same time, Republicans in the House are currently trying to push through a version of the Farm Bill, (which, through the USDA, funds food stamps) that will cut an additional $40 billion from SNAP over the next decade. Speaker John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, has argued that the reduction in the Farm Bill discourages wasteful spending on benefits and “makes getting Americans back to work a priority again for our nation’s welfare programs.” While it appears increasingly unlikely that the bill will manage to pass before the House begins its winter recess on December 13, thus delaying it until January’s legislative session, many Democratic representatives now support somewhere between $8 and $10 billion in cuts. The question, it seems, is not whether or not there will be cuts, but how extensive they will be. Many of the people at Hyde Park Union Church would agree with Representative Boehner’s assertion that SNAP has not been wholly successful, but for entirely different reasons. Jacqueline Turner, sixty-two, relates how she has been forced to come out of retirement and look for work

in order to help provide for her diabetic aunt, who is ninety-three. “Why attack the poor people?” she asks indignantly about the food stamp cuts. The process of visiting this food pantry, she says, is already humiliating enough. The woman next to her, who declines to give her name, agrees. She can no longer afford to eat three meals a day, she says, but instead has a light tea with breakfast, and later a small lunch, so that she is able to afford a substantive dinner. She is short and sharp, partially blaming the poverty around her on the government’s unwillingness to institute a one-child policy, like the one in China. She also decries the life

supplies Hyde Park Union and is the largest food distribution organization in the city, says that the cuts will be “devastating” to the large number of people for whom “the recovery hasn’t trickled down yet.” Morello adds that many of these people already have jobs, but still qualify for welfare because of the low wages they receive. In other words, there simply are not enough well-paying jobs for everyone to earn an income that allows them to live without food stamps and other federal benefits. There are other issues that further complicate the problem of eating properly on the South Side. Because of food deserts—formally defined by the USDA as

The question is not whether or not there will be cuts to SNAP funding, but how extensive they will be. of underprivileged overreliance on a state that doesn’t seem to care about her and the community she lives in. While Turner clearly takes issue with her political views, she seems to share a similar sense of marginalization, a feeling that they both live in an unwanted place, one in which the government provides just enough to sustain them and their community, while never actually doing anything to help them in any permanent or meaningful way. At one point, the woman compares her neighborhood to “a concentration camp,” and ominously warns, “It’s coming to a point…” She doesn’t specify exactly what “it” is.

he USDA estimates that 900,000 Chicagoans use SNAP, many of whom are children or senior citizens. Paul Morello, a spokesperson for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, which

“parts of the country vapid of fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthful whole foods”—that exist in low-income areas across the South Side, many residents often turn to less nutritious options. This contributes to increased obesity, as healthy foods are scarcely available or barely affordable, though the relationship between food deserts and weight gain catalogued by many researchers is somewhat contentious. A New York Times article published last year, for example, claimed that supermarkets and grocery stores may be more available in poorer areas than richer ones. This would mean that increased obesity rates are actually a function of other factors, such as a lack of education about healthy choices. By sending mobile pantries and “Producemobiles” that distribute fruits and vegetables through the South Side, however, the GCFD hopes to provide healthier choices to more people. About twenty of these new

produce distributors now operate around the South Side, though only for a few days a week, and only for a couple of hours a day. On a Saturday at Hyde Park Union, however, no one had ever heard of these mobile pantries. One woman, Erika Bright, spoke to the difficulty of finding healthy food, observing that many of the families she knew bought fried or canned food because it lasted longer, even if it was unhealthy. Lee Stapleton, meanwhile, said he believed that healthy food options— such as the Whole Foods store scheduled to open in Englewood in 2016—would find willing patrons around the South Side, though perhaps fewer than in other parts of the city. While there are several options available for those looking to buy reasonably priced produce and groceries, including Aldi and Food 4 Less, it can still be difficult for some to make the trip out of the neighborhood every time they need to go shopping for groceries. sked about the psychological effects of this type of poverty, Stapleton identifies the “depressed, displaced trauma” of people who have to choose between paying rent and eating. He also exhorts government at all levels—local, state, and federal—to encourage economic development. Similarly, Bright says that there is “no room for anything fun or fulfilling” in her life, and wishes that politicians could, at least briefly, experience what it’s like to live on food stamps. Jacqueline Turner, meanwhile, seems resigned to working for a while longer in order to provide for her aunt, at an age when most others might begin to think fondly of retirement. All of them reiterate, over and over, their frustration with a government that doesn’t do enough to help them and their communities, whether those are families, friends, or neighborhoods. As Turner’s companion walks into a meeting with a social worker, she leaves with a powerful parting shot: “Just give me my forty acres and a mule, and leave me alone.” ¬

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Melancholy Holidays A Truman Capote double feature at Provision Theater BY STEPHEN URCHICK

he precocious seven-year-old Buddy eats dirt. Playground tormenter Odd Henderson straddles his squirming body and pins his flailing limbs. “You’re a sissy, and I’m just straightenin’ you out.” Buddy nevertheless continues to snake his spine and wriggle vigorously in futile defiance. He later inveighs against Odd’s evilness: “And I’m speaking of a twelve-year-old boy who hasn’t even had time to ripen!” One of two holiday-themed Truman Capote short stories in Provision Theater Company’s back-to-back adaptations, “The Thanksgiving Visitor” is an archetypical bully reconciliation tale. The stage version retains all the expected tropes: a geeky victim; stolen spending money; the attempt to feign illness and keep away from school; and a third-party push from his sole caretaker, elderly Miss Sook, to invite the aggressor to Thanksgiving, meeting hatred with goodwill. Nevertheless, the physical violence staged early on tempers this feelgood setup with heightened psychological stakes. Welcome to Depression-era rural America, where adolescent brutality looms larger than name-calling. Throughout “The Thanksgiving Visitor” and into the subsequent “A Christmas Memory,” actor Max Gannet assumes the two voices of young Buddy and his later, lushly reminiscent adulthood. He credibly sketches childish antics, yet he’s old enough to command dignity—ably tackling the dramatic effort needed to conflate the child and the mature narrator. Provision overcomes the difficulties posed by Capote’s thick prose by translating it wholesale into abundant soliloquies, where the narrator assesses the situation like an Alabaman chorus. Watching Buddy beaten up is saddening, but seeing this articulate narrator resume the play and take the noogie he’s describing proves wincingly shameful. Buddy is in the household garden with Miss Sook, down on all fours, imitating his rat terrier Queenie. The spotlight slowly moves onto Buddy alone. His eyes glimmer yellow as he straightens up, kneeling like a parishioner. The flannel robe he’s been wearing 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

courtesy of the provision theater company

while sick becomes a grave, oriental jacket. Sook’s oblivious as the narrator now powers gently through an attractively prosodic interjection. This figure’s abuse is consequently hateful, and the narrator’s own resentment grows understandably caustic. He begins using his powers to focus Buddy’s juvenile, confused anger through a robust literary lens. He gives bulk and shape to the profound feelings his younger self couldn’t express. Buddy’s not happy when Odd steals the Thanksgiving party with a song: “The jealousy running through me could electrocute a murderer.” When Odd indiscreetly pockets Miss Sook’s cameo—a crime which Buddy invisibly witnesses—”a sizzling light bulb of an idea” burns his mouth “bone dry from the prospect of total revenge.” Buddy denounces Odd at the dinner table, his chair crashing down with the day’s shattered celebratory spirit. But his bid for vengeance backfires, and he flees, full of hot, tearful embarrassment, to the smokehouse. As he contemplates suicide by means of a discovered poison bottle, Gannet’s two voices become practically indistinguishable. Buddy’s distraught tirade and the narrator’s rhetoric crescendo and fuse.

¬ DECEMBER 4, 2013

Miss Sook ultimately talks Buddy down and educates him against deliberate cruelty. Sook’s well-traveled moral on two wrongs and a right is well taken, but not borne out so happily by “Visitor’s” epilogue. Odd walks out on Thanksgiving, eventually drops out of school, and joins up with the merchant marine on what’s presumably the eve of the Second World War and the Battle of the Atlantic. Buddy and his foe are hardly reconciled. The narrator reports swaggering satisfaction in Odd’s absence, casting doubt on the lesson’s integrity. Though Odd ultimately returns to perform a neighborly act years later, the kindness is subdued and minimal, almost one-sided, as Odd keeps conspicuously quiet. “A Christmas Memory” mobilizes the characterization from “Visitor.” It’s a glorified mission to make and distribute fruitcakes, but the mood becomes surprisingly autumnal as Buddy reflects on what’s revealed as his final winter with Sook. She announces “It’s fruitcake weather!” with zeal, finding a windfall of nuts, some unexpected magnanimity in a Native American bootlegger, and a little leftover whiskey along the way. Buddy and Sook fly kites on Christmas day. “I could leave the world with this in my eyes,” she whispers. Yet Buddy leaves her for military academy. We

watch her shuffle around upstage, Buddy narrating up front. One winter, Sook can no longer summon the strength to climb from bed. “It’s fruitcake weather!” suddenly embodies dull, empty shock at her surprise disability. Hearing of her death, Buddy concludes with pointed wistfulness: “Home...is where my friend is.” By twinning Buddy’s boy-self and his older, richly descriptive register in Gannet’s person, “The Thanksgiving Visitor” strains the holiday spirit with an internalized meanness. It spills over into an exhausted fury and an uncertainly hollow resolution. It retains a bittersweet moral, feeling much like Buddy’s clutching, waist-high hug to Miss Sook. The two Capote adaptations both articulate the season’s cheer, but pair it with something as sad as Odd’s broad hands confusedly cupping Sook’s gifted chrysanthemum—as sad as Buddy’s recollection that Queenie’s gone away to bury her Christmas bone in the field where, a year hence, Queenie will herself be buried. ¬ Provision Theater, 1001 W. Roosevelt Rd. Through December 29. See site for showtimes. $10-$32. (312)455-0066. provisiontheater.org

STAGE & SCREEN

Glazing the Moment Building toward Redmoon’s “Winter Pageant” BY STEPHEN URCHICK

ancing birds trickled out onto the chalk-sketched stage at an announcement from a moonlit man in a suspended cage. The largely uncostumed performers swirled and wove benignly around a glowing tree. They were happily at home, swelling and ebbing on mellow music until a congress of ravens descended in a storm—rippling the locals’ ranks and heightening the stakes. Their raven-lord lurched down from atop an unskinned hydraulic tower, flanked by wing-flapping henchmen. The resident birds, briefly cowed, now soared into a choreographed assault. The music suddenly cut out. Redmoon Theater Artistic Director Frank Maugeri stepped forward. “What you’re trying to do is protect the tree!” He was having trouble detecting the coming battle’s objective; the desperate holding action was still too fuzzily articulated. He gestured out a sharper vision—explaining what the audience ought to see after two-and-a-half weeks of rehearsals, when Redmoon’s fifty-minute, forty-performer, three-director “Winter Pageant” spectacle show went up. Conceived to comfortably include multiple dance groups from both North and South sides, replete with a surf-rock band, stilts, and massive machinery—sleight-of-hand, fast-roping monkey-men, and elaborate shadow-puppetry—this first rehearsal could only possibly grapple with the spectacle’s opening act. “You crack the code in the first ten minutes,” said Maugeri, “you crack the show.” The performers adapted their routines, developing a defense on the fly, molding a new scene from what they had previously prepared. Hip-hop dancers from the Happiness Club caucused briefly, mulling over their repertoire. The lead dancers from the Indian and the Indonesian outfits paired off momentarily, playing new ideas against the other as if into responsive, sympathetic mirrors. According to Maugeri there’s no script. “We just start with bullet points.” From those initial sketches, the various partnering artists each develop their own, considerably disparate material. Seasoned stagehands and community volunteers turn out to populate Redmoon’s Pilsen warehouse-theater with works-in-progress. Redmoon attempts to meaningfully fuse

stephen urchick

everything together through rapid collaboration and revision. “It’s a fast process with a lot of people,” Maugeri said. The music resumed, at this point cued largely from a sound-suite but occasionally supplemented by the audio tech’s electric guitar. The Southeast Asian dancers united, checking the raven-lord’s advance as one, synchronized phalanx, palms clasped in low, offended bows. Their leader rose upwards to meet the raven-lord, but he planted his staff and brushed her away with his free arm’s slow, broad sweep. His second lashed out, shooing the stragglers like so many sparrows. Her flailing black ribbon licked their twirling flight’s general arc. The raven-lord now menaced the Happiness Club, their measured locking and popping evoking a dance-off’s itching militancy. He dispersed them as easily, blowing them back and apparently off balance. The raven-lord rounded on the tree, not expecting that the leader from the first group had recovered and stood in his path.

“We need to establish this!” said Maugeri, shadowing the action. He talked through the raven-lord’s unvoiced thoughts, circling him widely: “I came for the tree, but this one—she is pesky!” Today seemed to be Maugeri’s day, and he spent much of it on his feet, marshaling the diverse cast into a narrative unit. “My job is to look at the bigger spectacle,” he said. “Does that stage picture tell the story?” The Indian leader-bird summoned her final strength as the raven-lord’s second pressed her into a duel. The latter snaked her coils counterclockwise to the former’s rotation, containing the lone defender’s last stand. Having sidelined all those who depended on the tree, the raven-lord drained its vital light to triumphant rock riffs, tramping away stage left, laughing. Small changes and innovations continued to accrue as the rehearsal marched further into the show. Does the hydraulic boom really contribute anything theatrically? Is it more logical for the raven-lord

or his second to lurk over a forest sequence, clinging to an oversized gramophone upstage? Just how creepily touchy should the forest’s pointy-fingered tree-people become? “We do a big glaze of a moment,” explained Maugeri, “and chop away until we have a scene.” The rehearsal was aptly sculptural. Beginning with a slab of ideas, the cast chiseled the concepts down. They chipped the action at individual breaking points, taking the birds’ initial, territorial antagonism and honing it into a fight for home, a war against the darkness, defeat in detail. Redmoon’s “Winter Pageant” began to resemble its constituent flocks—a colorful aggregation, variably absorbing and expelling elements, accepting those changes with relatively unruffled feathers. ¬ Redmoon Theater, 2120 S. Jefferson St. December 13-December 22. See website for showtimes. $10-25. (312)850-8440 x123. redmoon.org.

DECEMBER 4, 2013 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

From the Outside, Looking In Sarah Morris’s “Chicago” barely scratches the surface BY PAIGE PENDARVIS

arah Morris’s 2011 film “Chicago” opens with the assaulting beats of manufactured electronic music. Bright images of rainbow-colored programs on computer screens fill the darkened theater with an eerie glow. Morris makes the audience wait through several minutes of this visual and aural chaos before offering up a glimpse of the titlular city. She first shows Chicago’s fabled skyline from across Lake Michigan, letting us soak up the familiar jungle of steel, glass, and concrete from afar, before plunging right into the midst of the towering buildings themselves. The camera flits in between buildings, allowing a bit too much time for admiration of the architecture downtown. The electronic music continues throughout the length of the film. This is the only sound the audience hears for the next sixty minutes; Morris includes shots of conversations, but all the audience can hear is the music’s constant pulse as the people onscreen speak unheard words. The film also uses beautiful close-up shots that evoke the intrusive feeling that Morris is revealing what is usually hidden to the everyday observer. “Chicago” might have been more approachable if Morris had showcased images of what the average Chicagoan sees—and the average Chicagoan is not a businessman in the Loop. Morris neglects to explore the neighborhoods further south and west, where the workers she shows so prominently retreat when the day is done. Throughout the film, Morris takes the audience on a journey through the offices of “Ebony” and “Playboy” magazines, inside the industrial inner workings of a meat processing plant, Fermilab, and the Chicago Tribune’s news printing machinery. The scenes—shot both during and after a typical workday—are remarkably similar in all

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¬ DECEMBER 4, 2013

three of these places. But Morris’s focus on large-scale downtown industry overlooks the importance of the people who make these industries run day after day. Her heavy focus on business could have benefited from some variety, perhaps by showing some of Chicago’s artistic endeavors: escaping the factory and delving into a locally-run gallery somewhere south of the Loop. Morris visits two different restaurants downtown to showcase the ways Chicagoans like to eat. Surprisingly, deep-dish pizza fails to make the cut. Morris instead stops by Manny’s Coffee Shop, a Jewish deli, during the lunch rush, and an unnamed experimental upscale restaurant at dinnertime whose kitchen looks like a chemistry lab. The attention Morris pays to the act of sitting down to eat a meal—a rather common aspect of human life—reveals just how different this communal experience can look. At Manny’s, we see fluorescent-lit cases filled with pre-wrapped slices of pie and middle-aged men hastily slapping together sandwiches, which are then consumed by mostly lower-middle class customers in a bland beige room. At the high-end restaurant, the chefs meticulously assemble miniscule plates that look more like edible art than dinner; waiters dressed in black bring the plates to smartly-dressed diners waiting in a sleek black and silver dining room. Morris’s examination of Chicago food could have used some cultural variation, or at least a trip out of downtown. It’s difficult to know exactly what Morris aims to accomplish with “Chicago” from viewing the film alone. Fortunately, on the night of “Chicago’s” premiere at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Morris agreed to talk about the film with Dieter Roelstraete, Manilow senior curator at

VISUAL ARTS

courtesy of the museum of contemporary art

the MCA. Morris, a slim woman in her mid-forties, was dressed in black pants and a blazer with a large black and white silk scarf blooming around her neck. A sleek brown bob framed her face. It seems as though Morris puts the same exacting scrutiny to her appearance that she does to her films and art—no element of her carefully crafted image was out of place. One of Morris’s first moves was to correct Roelstraete for calling her series of city-based films “portraits;” this is a term Morris herself doesn’t use, as it is “much too utilitarian.” Morris’s objection to this term is a rather interesting one. “Chicago” is a film that does seem to create a visual portrait of the city—or at least a portrait of what an outsider might think of when they think of Chicago. Yet Morris stated that she based “Chicago” off of what first comes to her mind when she thinks of the Windy City—its political history, industry, meatpacking, advertising, publishing, and architecture. Specifically, Morris noted that Chicago is constantly filmed, so she wanted to confront her audience with a different filmed look at the city. Still, many members of the audience were unsatisfied with Morris’s answers. One, in particular, asked if she was aware that Chicago is often called “the city of neighborhoods,” as Morris essentially ignored all neighborhoods other than the Loop. Morris said she was, in fact, aware of Chicago’s many neighborhoods, but wasn’t at all interested in filming them. “I’m not interested in creating portraits,” she reminded us once more. Morris said “Chicago” was guided by her “automated interest” in the city, so she only researched

the aspects of Chicago of which she was already aware. Morris showed no interest in learning about Chicago’s people, places, and things that weren’t already on her radar as an outsider. For Morris, these films are hardly more than “an excuse to investigate a place, meet new people, and talk to them.” A Chicagoan can hardly help but ask how much “investigation” Morris really did. Chicago is bigger and more complex than Morris shows. It’s a shame that she runs from this diversity rather than embracing it and using Chicago’s beautiful complexity to deepen her storytelling. Morris’s purportedly “unified perception” of Chicago as a centralized, industrial powerhouse may have some truth to it—but there is more to Chicago than the Loop’s skyscrapers and the businessmen walking down State Street. Morris includes several scenes of a sports car driving into and out of the Loop, but she never asks us to wonder where the driver is coming from. ”City Self ” at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 220 E. Chicago Ave. Through April 13, 2014. Tuesday 10am-8pm, Wednesday-Sunday 10am-5pm. Suggested general admission $12, students and seniors $7, members free; free admission for Illinois residents every Tuesday. (312)280-2660. mcachicago.org

DECEMBER 4, 2013 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

FOOD

luke white

Come for the Coffee Flecks Coffee brings coffee culture to Chatham

BY DOVE BARBANEL

ucked into a corner on bustling 79th Street in Chatham, Flecks Coffee Company brings in customers of all stripes for a solid breakfast and a cup of coffee with some company. “I wrote a play sitting right there,” says Sati Word, a regular. He points to a wooden table and chair against the far wall. The wall is painted deep red and embossed with the words “Dream Big” in large-font calligraphy. Flecks Coffee is “something different, that the area didn’t have before,” Sati explains (it opened in June). “It brings in a crowd I didn’t know was here, neighborhood folks.” Coffee is already a culture in Chicago, and neighborhoods across the city have become fertile ground for small-batch roasters and independent coffee shops with atmosphere. Hyde Park has more than a full serving of cafés catering to the UofC population, and nearby Woodlawn has Robust Coffee Lounge, home to the Mocha Diablo. Flecks Coffee, however, is the first shop of its kind in Chatham, at least according 14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

to its owner and its patrons. The shop is minimalist in design but elegant. It’s furnished with wooden tables and high chairs, and brightly lit from two walls of windows facing out onto the street. Customers drop in for a cup of coffee and stay to watch highlights on the flat screen behind the counter and talk football with the barista. Lines of glasses stand along the large wooden counter, in front of a gleaming new espresso machine and the Flecks Coffee logo on the wall. The name comes from the blond flecks in the crema on top of a quality cup of espresso, according to Zuli Turner, the younger half of the mother-daughter ownership team, along with her mother Olga. “We are into the café lifestyle,” Zuli said. “We provide a healthy alternative to what is currently found in Chatham. We don’t really compete with anyone else—we don’t sell potato chips, candy, soda.” Instead, the menu includes specialty Belgian waffles and omelettes for breakfast, paninis and salads for lunch, and of

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course, plenty of coffee drinks. The food is made to order in the shop, with fresh fruit as a side. The Turners aim to build a unique niche in the neighborhood. “One of our missions is to enrich the community, not to take out withdrawals and make no deposits,” said Zuli. While Flecks Coffee has been open for only five months, the shop is already developing into a community hub. This past month (through November 23), the owners hosted a popular Saturday night Noir Film Festival, setting up a projector and a screen along one wall and recruiting help from local filmmakers. Flecks also hosted its first open mic on Black Friday, and there are plans for a slam poetry event in the future. “There are so many creative individuals who come out of Chatham,” Zuli explained. “You have no idea who you’re sitting next to, but then when they’re at the café and you’re chatting, you’re like, you must be kidding, we have to make something out of this.” When the sign-up for open mic was first posted,

Zuli said she received five pages of names: “That’s how thirsty the community is.” In addition to creative types, the café attracts an eclectic crowd of mostly older residents, according to barista Wilton Jones. “It’s something different. People may go to Starbucks, but they might never have had a cappuccino before.” Schoolteachers from the nearby elementary school, CTA bus drivers, retired civil workers, and neighborhood business owners number among the usual patrons. “Residents have been so warm and receptive to us. Not a day goes by that people haven’t said they’re so happy we’re here,” Zuli said. “We want to be a place for everybody.” ¬ Flecks Coffee, 343 E. 79th Street. Tuesday-Friday, 6am-6:30pm; Saturday, 7am6pm; Sunday, 8am-3pm. (773)891-0057. facebook.com/FlecksCoffeeCo

VISUAL ARTS Human Rights Day Show URI-EICHEN Gallery is celebrating and challenging what it means to be a human in today’s world with the Human Rights Day Show, featuring a display of drawings by labor cartoonist Mike Konopacki. Konopacki has published six collections of his drawings; this exhibition will showcase drawings from his most recent collaboration with Paul Buhle and Howard Zinn on the comic-based history text “A People’s History of American Empire.” At 7:30pm, Joe Isobaker and Ruth Needleman, both activists, will lead a discussion on American Imperialism. Live music will be provided for those audience members not completely downtrodden by the continuing human struggles outlined and discussed at the event. URI-EICHEN Gallery, 2101 S. Halsted St. Friday, December 6, 6pm-10pm. (312)852-7717. uri-eichen.com (Katryce Lassle)

Black Is, Black Ain’t The Renaissance Society is holding a book launch and symposium to celebrate the launch of an exhibition catalog from the 2008 show “Black Is, Black Ain’t,” curated by Hamza Walker. The exhibition explored issues of racial representation and identity in visual art, centered in a world that was at once pushing for race to come to the foreground and fade into the background. This Sunday afternoon, a “cast of curators, critics, and scholars” will come together to discuss the 2008 show alongside similarly influential exhibitions of the past three decades, from the 1994 “Black Male” to the 2012 “Blues for Smoke.” “Black Is, Black Ain’t” was up at the Renaissance Society only a few months before the election of our first black president; in the wake of Obama’s re-election, it will be interesting to explore any shifts that have erupted in contemporary art in these five short years. University of Chicago’s Kent Hall, 1020 E. 58th St., Room 107. Sunday, December 8, 2pm. Free. (773)702-8670. renaissancesociety.org (Katryce Lassle)

A Sherman Beck Retrospective The South Side Community Art Center will be honoring renowned South Side artist Sherman Beck in an upcoming retrospective, presenting a collection representative of Beck’s career from 1955 to the present. Starting in the late sixties, Beck was part of the radical AFRICOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists), a group of artists whose mission was to join the black cultural movement through visual arts. Beck has been a working artist for most of his life—he still frequently exhibits his work—and the South Side is vastly better for knowing him. Join the SSCAC in paying tribute to one of the South Side’s most influential artists, and maybe even have a conversation with the man himself. South Side Community Art Center, 3831 S. Michigan Ave. Through December 12. Wednesday-Friday, noon-5pm; Saturday, 9am-5pm; Sunday, 1pm-5pm. (773)373-1026. southsidecommunityartcenter.com (Katryce Lassle)

2nd Fridays Gallery Night What better way to spend a Friday evening than by wandering through dozens of open art spaces around Pilsen’s South Halsted and 18th Streets, schmoozing with artists and art lovers alike—for free? On the second Friday of every month, Pilsen’s Chicago Arts District hosts a 2nd Fridays Gallery Night to sate the artsy voyeur in you. Galleries and studio spaces alike are open to the public, allowing you to not only visit some of Pilsen’s running exhibitions, but to catch a glimpse of works-in-progress and the artists behind them. Chicago Arts District, 1821 S. Halsted St. Friday, December 13, 6pm-10pm. Second Friday of every month. Free. (312)738-8000 x108. chicagoartsdistrict.org (Katryce Lassle)

In the Hood Cesar Conde, a Filipino-American Chicago artist, transforms personal experiences into artworks conscious of the human condition, and based in a discussion of individual uniqueness and mutual understanding. His next project, “In The Hood—Portraits of African American Professionals,” examines the American perception of racial stigmas in reference to the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a black Florida teenager killed while wearing a hoodie. The exhibit features several oversized portraits of black professionals wearing hoodies, painted against stark black backgrounds. The presentation implores viewers to juxtapose racial identities imposed by society with the common humanity of all people, regardless of their attire or race. 33 Contemporary Gallery, Zhou B Art Center, 1029 W. 35 St. Through December 14. Monday-Friday, 10am-5pm. Free. (708)837-4534. 33collective.com (Olivia Adams)

ARTS CALENDAR Interiors and Exteriors Pre-World War II surrealism and post-war avant-garde, while spurred by quite different sentiments in France and abroad, remain tightly bound in art history. The former paved the way for the latter in many ways, with the era’s prewar anticipation and post-war dejection both pressing artists (and ordinary citizens) to find new and creative ways to escape, modify, or challenge individual realities. Curated by UofC art history PhD students Jennifer Cohen and Marin Sarvé-Tarr and featuring works from the Smart’s collections as well as the UofC and Northwestern libraries, the exhibition confronts the complex differences that emerged at the time between personal expression and political life. While art and politics have changed drastically since the second World War, “Interiors and Exteriors” is sure to highlight the common threads in artistic expression that have endured. Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. December 17-March 16. Tuesday-Wednesday, 10am-5pm; Thursday, 10am-8pm; Friday-Sunday, 10am-5pm. Free. (773)702-0200. smartmuseum.uchicago.edu

STAGE & SCREEN Isabel Wilkerson Book Signing The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Warmth of Other Suns” will sign copies of her historical narrative on the Great Migration this Saturday at the Seminary Co-op. The book examines the under-explored history of six million African Americans fleeing Jim Crow cruelty and seeking a better life in America’s largest cities. It chronicles the stories of three people representing three migration streams: to Chicago in the thirties, to New York City in the forties, and to Los Angeles in the fifties. Wilkerson demonstrates that many people acted more like refugees than migrants, establishing hometown-based communities and running into new troubles in locations that until very recently had no place for them. Seminary Co-op Bookstore. Saturday, December 7, 3pm-4:30pm. $17 books, free signing. (773)752-4381. semcoop. com (Jon Brozdowski)

An Iliad Already in the title a disarming modesty is in place. It’s intimate: an Iliad, this Iliad. Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare—the duo who adapted the twenty-four-book epic poem “The Iliad” into the ninety-five-minute one-man show “An Iliad”—aren’t interested in contending with Homer for the definite article. The drama of this performance, directed by Court Theatre’s Charles Newell, doesn’t derive from the struggle between the Trojans and the Greeks, or even from the rage of Achilles, but from the anxiety of one man who, having represented the bloodshed, the waste, and the tragedy of the Trojan War thousands of times across thousands of years, finds himself straining to make the ancient story present to us—and to himself—again. See full review online. Court Theatre, 5525 S. Ellis Ave. Through December 8. See site for showtimes and prices. (773)753-4472. courttheatre. org (Spencer Mcavoy)

Winter Pageant For their fifteenth annual “Winter Pageant,” Redmoon Theater promises abundant avian imagery, eclectic choreography, and even surprise shadow-puppetry as they tell the tale of a plucky pigeon’s quest to return the pilfered light to his flock’s glowing tree. The Pilsen-based spectacle company has opened their set builds to community volunteers. They’ve brought together aerialists, a surf-rock band, and a Mexican clown artist; they’ve combined East-Asian, Indonesian, hip-hop, ballet, and belly dancing. Coming at you from as many different angles as a host of startled sparrows, it’s hardly liable to be the typical holiday show. Redmoon Theater, 2120 S. Jefferson St. December 13-December 22. See website for showtimes. $10-$25. (312)850-8440 x123. redmoon.org (Stephen Urchick)

Solo Saturdays Another Saturday, another show. Once a month, Chicago Solo Theatre pulls together a cast of artists to regale the audience with standalone stories or excerpts from longer pieces. The tales are tall and the performers are drawn from venues across Chicago. All have talents that stretch beyond keeping a crowd captive on the sheer power of their charisma; the stage will see an “actor, storyteller, massage therapist, bald guy”—and that’s just one of them. Another storyteller is a dentist by day, a good argument for not laughing too wide. In keeping with the theme of calling things what they are, the show’s venue is The Venue, entered through Overflow Coffee Bar in the South Loop. The Venue, 1550 S. State St. Saturday, December 14, 7:30pm. (Hannah Nyhart)

A Christmas Memory and The Thanksgiving Visitor

Thursday, December 5, 7pm. $12-$15. 18+. (312)949-0120. reggieslive.com (Zach Goldhammer)

Strict seasonalists—those sticks in the mud who insist on celebrating popular holidays in order—will have a new thorn in their side this winter, as Provision Theater presents its adaptation of Truman Capote’s short stories “A Christmas Memory” and “The Thanksgiving Visitor” at the same time. The charming tales are loosely autobiographical, and detail the close friendship between a young boy and his elderlybut-young-at-heart cousin. The show opens November 20, but those who like to gripe about the modern elongation of the “Christmas Season” can hold off until they deem Christmas cheer appropriate: the run will continue through December 29, when every mall in America will be well on their way to hawking Valentines merch. Provision Theater, 1001 W. Roosevelt Rd. Through December 29. See site for showtimes. $10-$32. (312)455-0066. provisiontheater.org (Hannah Nyhart)

Rudresh Mahanthappa

A Christmas Carol, Abridged In an increasingly blustery winter, you can’t blame Dream Theatre for keeping cozy in their wheelhouse. The company once again displays its talent for reinventing the classics, but their rendition of a Christmas Carol will keep closer to the original than their typical, enthusiastically contorted fare. Rachel Martindale directs a rendition that takes its words directly from Dickens’ 170-year-old holiday tale. Running at just over an hour, the show keeps the focus on those words by dressing them sparsely. Three actors—Stephen Fedo, Christian Isely, and Rachel Martindale—perform amid minimal furnishings. Dream Theatre creative engine Jeremy Menekseoglu does not appear to be featured, unless he’ll be making an appearance in abridged form as Tiny Tim. Dream Theatre Company, 556 W. 18th St. Through December 29. See site for showtimes. $13-$18. (773)552-8616. dreamtheatrecompany. com (Hannah Nyhart)

MUSIC Chuck Inglish, Kings Dead, Tayyib Ali, Kidd Tha Chicagoan, ClarkAirlines The slow-and-smooth-as-molasses flow of Chuck Inglish will be gracing Reggies Rock Club on Thursday. The rapper, who forms one half of the eighties revivalist duo, the Cool Kids, is also an exceedingly innovative producer who helped update the boom-bap sound with a low-end twist, tailor-made for hip-hop’s millennial generation. Inglish will be joined on Thursday by Kings Dead—the Boston-based collegiate rap duo formerly known as The Dean’s List, along with Philly’s Tayyib Ali, and the local underdog, Kidd Tha Chicagoan (not to be confused with Chance collaborator and crooner, BJ the Chicago Kid) and, lastly, the aspiring-ball-player-turned-rapper, ClarkAirlines. The show could end up being a hodge-podge display of hip-hop acts who really have very little to do with one another. Still, this reviewer holds a small sliver of hope that the five performers somehow end up uniting and forming a rapping megazord of disparate dopeness. Reggies Rock Club, 2105 S. State St.

Have you ever wished that you could hobnob with your favorite jazz musicians and compare notes about your favorite records? Hyde Park Jazz Festival and University of Chicago Presents Jazz at the Logan have teamed up to make your dreams a reality. Next Thursday they will be premiering their new Listening Sessions program, in which they invite performers to Logan’s ninth floor Performance Penthouse to informally present and discuss records of their choosing. This week, Rudresh Mahanthappa, famed alto saxophonist and scholar of Indian Carnatic music, will be coming to hang out with the crowd at Logan. Don’t miss your chance to schmooze with a jazz master. Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., Penthouse Salon. Thursday, December 5, 7pm. Free. (773)702-2787. (Zach Goldhammer)

Syleena Johnson In the mid-nineties, the perpetually almost-famous Chicago soul singer Syl Johnson was seeking a renaissance of recognition. After having his songs sampled in countless numbers of hip-hop tracks, sixty-year-old Syl wanted the rap generation to know who he was. In order to win over the younger audience, Johnson pulled his then-eighteen-year-old daughter, Syleena, into the recording studio for his 1994 comeback album, “Back In The Game” and for the duet follow-up, “This Time Together For Father and Daughter.” Nearly two decades later, Syleena seems to have inherited her father’s knack for bittersweet success. Despite six well-received solo albums, she is best known for the hook on Kanye West’s 2004 hit, “All Falls Down.” The chorus was originally intended to be a sample of Lauryn Hill’s “Mystery of Iniquity”; Syleena was just hired to re-record Hill’s part after West was unable to clear the sample. Johnson’s latest album, “Chapter V: Underrated” underscores the singer’s bitter feelings about her tepid success. Will Syleena now have the chance to find her own fame, or will she continue to perform in the shadow of others? The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Friday, December 6, 9pm. $15. (312)753-5700. theshrinechicago.com (Zach Goldhammer)

Handel’s Messiah Written in 1741 and performed in Hyde Park annually since 1930, Handel’s “Messiah” returns to Rockefeller Chapel this December. Chronicling the birth, passion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, the three-part oratorio uses baroque melody style coupled with text from the King James Bible and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, and is one of the most performed choral works of all time. The chapel is completely packed every year with audience, orchestra, and two choirs—the University Chorus, Motet Choir, and the Rockefeller Chapel Choir. The resulting sound is both deafening and undeniably glorious. The oratorio features soloists soprano Kimberly Jones, alto J’nai Bridges, tenor Trevór Mitchell, and bass Will Liverman and is conducted by James Kallembach. Rockefeller Chapel, 5850 S. Woodlawn Ave. Friday, December 6, 8 pm; Sunday, December 8, 3 pm. $5$45. (773)702-2100. arts.uchicago.edu (Bailey Zweifel)

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 Rachel Schastok and Charlie Rock Artist / Album / Record Label 1. Spray Paint / Rodeo Songs / S.S. 2. Mammoth Grinder / Underworlds / 20 Buck Spin 3. Purling Hiss / Water on Mars / Drag City 4. The Julie Ruin / Run Fast / TJR/Dischord 5. Gas Rag / Human Rights EP / Beach Impediment 6. Autistic Youth / Nonage / Dirtnap 7. Salvia Plath / The Bardo Story / Weird World 8. Ezra Furman / Day of the Dog / Bar/None 9. Shannon and the Clams / Dreams in the Rathouse / Hardly Art 10. The Gories / The Show Tapes:Live in Detroit 5/27/88 / Third Man 11. Wax Museums / Zoo Full of Ramones / Tic Tac Totally 12. Wau y los arrrghs!!! / Todo roto / Slovenly 13. Slushy / Candy / Randy 14. Life Stinks / Life Stinks / S.S. 15. Raspberry Bulbs / Deformed Worship / Blackest Ever Black

DECEMBER 4, 2013 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

Perfect Holiday Gift!

SAVE 50% with a Family Pass Any group of four can attend up to five 2013-14 Family Matinees for a discounted rate of $75 ticketsweb.uchicago.edu 773.702.ARTS

Logan Center Family Saturdays Free art workshops and fun for the whole family every month! PLUS: Family Matinees DEC 15 Holiday DIY Art Workshops JAN 18 Lee England Jr. FEB 22 Third Coast Percussion’s “The Color of Sound” MAR 22 Eth-Noh-Tec Storytellers APR 12 Interactive Workshop Day* No matinee MAY 31 “Fiddlin’ with Stories,” Charlotte Blake Alston & John Blake Jr. JUN 28 Wendy Clinard Dance’s “Chicago’s Watershed: A 156-Mile Choreography” JUL 12 Ase Youth Storytelling Concert Buy Family Passes and register for free workshps at ticketsweb.uchicago.edu!

LoganCenterFamilySaturdays

FREE PARKING AT THE LOGAN CENTER 915 E 60TH ST AT DREXEL AVE 773.702.ARTS Co-presented by