THE READER OMAHA SEPT 2023 FINAL EDITION

S e p tem ber 2 0 2 3 | volU ME 30 | I SSUE 07

T H E

L A S T

FLI

PC OV ER

I S S U E

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R E V O G N I D A E THANKS FOR R 30 YEARS. Y L R A E N E S E H T E N O D E V A H T ’ N WE COULD .

U O Y T U O H T I IT W S 3 & 16-33

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For 10 years, Saving Grace Perishable Food Rescue has been nourishing people and nurturing the planet. Working with partners and the public to raise awareness. Taking action to address the problems of wasted food and hunger in our community. Rescuing and redistributing approximately 8 million pounds of food, at a value of over $15 million dollars. Now, we invite you to join in the celebration of what’s possible.

Join us for our 10th Anniversary Celebration!

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SEPTEMBER 2023

T H E

L A S T

I S S U E

Thanks for Reading H

ow to say thanks for the opportunity of a lifetime?

It was such a group effort to launch and sustain, I’ve always felt like The Reader was a community initiative that became almost a combined sacred covenant when we were entrusted with El Perico.

How can a non-Spanish-speaking white guy really serve the people?

Omaha Star Publishers Dr. Marguerita Washington, Phyllis Hicks and Frankie Williams, along with Star administrator Tanya Cooper and the 1st Sky Omaha team, alongside Mundo Latino Publisher Abril Garcia with El Perico stalwarts Bernardo Montoya, Marina Rosado, Marcos Mora, Antonio Guardiola and others helped model that for me. My sisters and brothers at the National Association of Hispanic Publications and National Newspaper Publishers Association only strengthened that. Their grace and wisdom have always inspired me and helped me keep my compass straight.

It was a business, but it was community first. That tested our investors and vendors, but they never wavered, so nor did we.

The list to thank is too long. And I dropped a ball (one of many) by not including contributions on Michael Joseph Pryor, aka MoJoPo, our astrologer, and Michael Braunstein, our original Heartland Healing polemicist in this last issue. For every writer, editor, photographer, designer and account executive who got their start or second chance with us, there was a publisher and team thirsty for help and hungry for a shared creativity that ultimately reflected an Omaha otherwise neglected.

We knew the work was important.

You proved that to us every issue by emptying our racks, reading online and sharing our stories. As a community, our cultural scene has exploded, from the inauspicious starts of the Cog Factory, Scribble Cru and Sokol Underground, to Benson First Fridays, Hispanic Art Center, South Omaha Murals and Culxr House, to name just a few. From our smallest venues, Omaha artists represent on the largest stages.

United, we showed we aren’t just red and blue, but speckles and dots of both.

I hope, like me, you’re bawling your eyes out after reading this issue for what we’ve accomplished together. It’s a lot. I hope to see you at our Dec. 16 celebration and roast. We have heart, and it’s steeped in soul. It’s OK, let it out, we have to make room for what’s next.

And that, my friends, is our new adventure. We can’t wait for others to tell our stories. One of my best teachers and friends, Leo Louis, showed me the importance of first knowing, owning and telling your own story and not letting others define you.

Hand in hand, that weaves a sustainable tapestry that builds an equitable community.

With profound gratitude,

John Heaston publisher/editor P.S. A special shout out to the crew that stuck with this through the end. To Ken, my longest and original collaborator, Karlha, Spike, Chris, Tylonda, Robyn, Bridget, all the contributors and our delivery team, you carried this as I faltered.

SEPTEMBER 2023

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t a b l e

o f

c o n t e n t s

Employer 06| Jobs Closing Shop?

n ew s

After Years of 08 Climate Neglect,

Omaha Promises This Time Will Be Different FLIP

S E P TE M B E R 2 0 2 3 | VO LU M E 30 | I S S UE 07

12

TR Interviews Climatologist Martha Durr

14

Bringing Prairie Back to Lawns

A Nonprofit’s New Short Film Shows the Impacts of Incarceration

Reader News 16 The Team Signs Off: Reflections and Looking Toward The Future

f ea tu res

CO VER

Farewell, Omaha

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

1993-2023

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

18| The Reader Remembers Fall Arts - Music: Get Ready for the Sounds of Autumn

Fall Arts - Visual: Metro Arts Promising Exhibition Season

MORE 

Fall Arts - Theater: Fall Lineups from Vampires to Shakespeare

44| Picks 38| Theater

Cool Things To Do in September

Vampires & Shakespeare

54| HooDoo The Last Call

Writers and Readers Past and Present Share Memories of The Reader

arts/visual.................... Mike Krainak mixedmedia@thereader.com backbeat.................... MarQ Manner backbeat@thereader.com dish................................ Sara Locke crumbs@thereader.com film.................................Ryan Syrek cuttingroom@thereader.com hoodoo................. B.J. Huchtemann bjhuchtemann@gmail.com over the edge..............Tim McMahan tim.mcmahan@gmail.com theater.................... Beaufield Berry coldcream@thereader.com

48| Film

FALL ARTS PREVIEW

A Farewell to Flicks

55| Comics

by Jeff Koterba, Jen Sorensen & Garry Trudeau

34| Visual Arts

publisher/editor........... John Heaston john@thereader.com graphic designers........... Ken Guthrie Albory Seijas news..........................Robyn Murray copy@thereader.com production editor... Michael Newgren spike@thereader.com lead reporter............... Chris Bowling chris@thereader.com associate publisher.... Karlha Velásquez karlha@el-perico.com report for america corps member..........Bridget Fogarty bridget@el-perico.com

40| Music Sounds of Autumn

Any Given Saturday

OUR SISTER MEDIA CHANNELS

50| Film Review ‘Blue Beetle’ Is Genuine, Silly, and Genuinely Silly OUR DIGITAL MARKETING SERVICES

36| Review

42| Dish

52| Backbeat

Josh Powell’s Collages ‘Observe’ a Speculative Vision of the Future

With R.U.B., Carlos Mendez Keeps Building His Legacy

Omaha’s Erin Mitchell Takes Ebba Rose to Debut Album, Festival Gigs

4

September 2023

56| Over the Edge A Goodbye and a Modest Proposal

Proud to be Carbon Neutral

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September 2023

5

O M A H A

J O B S

Employer Closing Shop?

Here’s What to Do

by Tamsen Butler

H

indsight can be 20/20.

Many employees who find themselves without a job after a business closes will realize there were signs all along that the business was floundering – they just didn’t see them until after the fact.

And while Nebraska is an atwill employment state, meaning you can be fired or quit at will, the WARN Act still applies in some situations when a business closes or engages in mass layoffs. It doesn’t apply if the company closes as the result of a natural disaster, though.

So, how are you supposed to know a business is getting ready to close its doors?

Signs of a Business Closing Before a business closes, you might notice the “higher-ups” having more meetings than usual, which they might call “strategy meetings” or something else vaguely corporate.

You might also notice that suddenly, the business isn’t hiring new employees and some of the key employees are getting disgruntled and starting to find jobs elsewhere.

It’s tricky because a business may know it’s closing its doors long before the closing date hits, but it won’t reveal this to employees or the public un­til it absolutely must. It doesn’t want to deal with the potential financial and emo­tional repercussions of a closing announcement.

6

And though most employment experts suggest respectfully alerting employees about an impending closure and offering incentives to stay until the doors actually close, in some cases it’s not just about being cordial to employees as the company shutters – it’s the law to notify them with ample notice.

The WARN Act The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act of 1989 is a federal law that requires some companies with 100 or more full-time employees, in some circumstances, to provide both employees and local government with notice that a company is closing or

September 2023

conducting mass layoffs in 60 days. The 60-day notice is designed to give employees time to find new jobs elsewhere or make other arrangements.

If 60-day notice isn’t given, the employer may be respon­ sible for back pay for the time gap in which it was sup­posed to have given notice. For example, if the company gives employees 30-day notice, the employer could be liable for 30 days of pay and benefits since sufficient notice wasn’t given.

Suppose a com­pany hands employees a notice in writing that the business is closing that very day. The com­pany may be liable for 60 days of pay and benefits to those employees since sufficient notice wasn’t given under the WARN Act.

Your Next Steps After Getting Notified Once you know you’re facing a layoff, it’s time to start aggressively looking for a new job. Don’t allow the illusion of time or the emotional trauma of the notice make you delay your efforts in finding a new job.

Peruse online job postings.

Reach out to recruiters who previously reached out to you.

Ask people who have already left if their new employer is hiring. Utilize all your networking skills as though it’s your new job to network.

The very day you’re unemployed, file your unemployment claim with the Department of Labor. It can take a few weeks for your unemployment claim to get processed, so time is of the essence.

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Provide data integrity, security and availability. Identify, analyze, develop, manipulate and report data affecting company performance. Establish and maintain scalable and extensible architecture for enterprise data warehouse and BI system. Summarize enterprise data in intuitive analysis framework. Design, develop, test and maintain ETL processes, reporting and dashboards to support strategic objectives and capture and retain enterprise data. Provide expertise for system integration via database design (data and dimensional modeling, logical and physical table design, complex queries, stored procedures and triggers, data transformation, aggregation and enterprise application integration). Analyze complex datasets (extraction, manipulation) and data and info for strategic decisions, balance portfolio risk, and optimal process efficiencies.

Ensure necessary data elements available for model building and strategy analysis.

Enhance data transformation, manipulation performance, and functionality. Support to production info systems. Research emerging tech, trends and benchmark data to improve customer experience, architecture, processes and tools and support analytical needs and incorporate into existing processes and systems. Develop and implement data warehouse and BI standards and best practices. Collaborate with business units and BAs to translate business needs into warehousing, analytics, reporting, and dashboarding requirements. Provide education on analytics and reporting advantages and mentor, support and provide direction.

Minimum Requirements: Bach degree or equiv in CS, MIS, Statistics or closely related field with 5 yrs of exp in data warehouse and/or business intelligence dev, including exp in architecting large scale data warehouses, providing users access to data, building reports and queries using various data querying tools, and with industry standards regarding MS database development concepts, best practices, and procedures; proficiency in data manipulation and reporting tools (SSMS, TSQL, SSAS, SSIS, SSRS, Business Objects, Excel, SAS, PowerPivot), Windows environment using MS Office and SharePoint, with database and data warehouse development (replication, staging, ETL, stored procedures, partitioning, change data capture, triggers, scheduling tools, cubes and data marts), and database, dashboard and report dev using Visual Studio, source control tools, Excel Services, PerformancePoint, PowerView, PowerBI and ER/Studio; basic analytical, data mining, data modeling and data management skills.

Send resumes to C. Messersmith, Farm Credit, 5015 S 118th St, Omaha, NE 68137 or Caylee.messersmith@fcsamerica.com.

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September 2023

7

N E W S

Climate Action…Now?

After years of neglect, Omaha promises this time will be different Story and photos by Chris Bowling

or manpower needed to realize its vision.

Omaha’s skyline as seen from Neale Woods

T

he sun ascended into a vacant late-summer sky as the concrete baked below. Later that day, Omaha’s heat index would reach 109 degrees.

But even at 8 a.m., it was too hot for Mike McMeekin, who retreated into an air-conditioned coffee shop.

McMeekin, an engineer and longtime political player in Omaha, was, in a way, there to talk about the weather — specifically storms, droughts, snow, floods and heat waves, which are getting worse in Nebraska as a result of humaninfluenced climate change. State research suggests Nebraska’s average temperatures could climb an additional 9 degrees by the end of the century, generating more extreme weather, scorching days and threatening public health.

Omaha hopes to help curb, or at least withstand, these changes with the help of its Climate Action and Resilience Plan slated to be unveiled November 2024.

Currently, the plan, which will identify strategies to reduce Omaha’s vulnerabilities — and contributions

ENGINEER MIKE MCMEEKIN

8

to — climate change, is being researched. A contractor is tallying Omaha’s greenhouse gas emissions while the city looks to hire a full-time staff member to oversee the plan. A website to track progress will soon be available along with an online survey for people to share ideas. In-person forums will start by the end of the year.

For some, this movement represents an optimistic shift for Omaha. Others are getting déjà vu.

“I feel like we already have [a plan],” McMeekin said.

In 2010, Omaha’s City Council approved the Environment Element of its Master Plan — a 152-page document developed by volunteers and partially steered by McMeekin.

It included hundreds of proposed strategies and more than 30 goals, ranging from reducing greenhouse gasses and increasing renewable energy resources to updating building codes and creating denser development.

Years later, the city has failed to meet most of its goals, costing the metro at least $1.39 billion in energy savings and a 23% reduction in energy consumption, according to projected figures in a 2011 city report.

City officials argue the 2010 plan proposed too much without setting priorities or suggesting how Omaha would secure the funding

September 2023

Others say it comes down to politics. The plan was conceived, and began implementation, under Mayor Jim Suttle, a Democrat. It fell apart under Mayor Jean Stothert, a Republican, who took office in 2013 and has instead prioritized public safety and trimming budgets.

Indeed, a decade’s worth of city emails obtained by The Reader shows officials in city government rarely discussed climate change or the Environment Element.

Now, many Omahans feel like the city is back to square one.

“If you look at the things that we decided about, it’s what we’re still talking about today,” said David Corbin, a longtime environmentalist and local Sierra Club leader in Omaha. “Energy efficiency, climate change, greenhouse gasses. We made recommendations and they still didn’t happen.”

Omaha is now one of the few large American cities without a climate plan, being outpaced by others such as Minneapolis, Des Moines and Chicago. Lincoln, which has a Democrat-controlled City Council and mayor, passed its plan in March 2021. Nebraska’s Legislature, officially nonpartisan but ultimately majority Republican, rejected 2020 calls to develop a plan for the state. Some cities, such as Cincinnati, can offer insight into how to make a plan not only sound good but also work — something that eludes most major

ENVIRONMENTALIST DAVID CORBIN

cities, which aren’t meeting their climate goals, according to research from the Brookings Institution.

“We don’t want a plan on a shelf,” said Marco Floreani, a deputy chief of staff for the mayor who is leading Stothert’s climate plan effort.

“We really want a plan that can be implemented.”

But the initiative has faced setbacks and delays. The mayor first called on city, business and nonprofit leaders to lead the plan in February 2021. It became public in November, but it wouldn’t be until August 2023 that the city officially hired a contractor.

“The track record for the city is abysmal,” said David Holtzclaw, an environmental engineer whose company, Transduction Technologies, consults on energy efficiency. “I can’t point to a single success or a single reason to have hope. It’s a plan that will sit on a shelf, much like the [Environment Element] … What has come of that? Nothing.”

As for McMeekin, he isn’t bitter.

He just doesn’t want to see the city fall further behind.

“I just feel strongly like, hey, if we had implemented [the Environment Element], we would essentially have had a climate action plan,” McMeekin said. “We’d be years ahead on things that we’re kind of starting over on now.”

‘The Forgotten Plan’ When it comes to environmentalism in Omaha, Corbin has learned to measure success in small steps. The Earth Day crowds listening to him perform Neil Young songs have gotten bigger. More people believe in climate change — 68% of people in the Omaha metro area believe global warming is happening and 55% say local officials

N E W S need to do something about it, according to 2021 Yale research.

But the Environment Element wasn’t a small step.

“It was very ambitious,” said Corbin, a retired public health educator who served on the plan’s community health committee. “I think people really felt that it could make a difference. And that we weren’t wasting our time — that something would come of it.”

The plan started in November 2008, part of a larger push by city, nonprofit and business leaders to reinvent Omaha into a lively metro rather than the suburban sprawl it had become by the mid2000s. It defined the city’s natural environment, construction patterns, natural resources and urban design. It took two years to develop.

But 15 years later, McMeekin refers to it as the “forgotten plan.”

One reason is that the plan lacked direction among its 681 recommended actions, said Derek Miller, head of long-range and mobility planning for the city and whose office oversees the Environment Element.

“It’s not actionable,” he said. “It doesn’t say, ‘If you do this every year for the next 10 years, then you can reach your goals.’”

Some point to the 2013 election of Stothert, who through a spokesperson referred all questions about climate work to Floreani, as a turning point.

From 2009 to 2013, the city had an Office of Sustainable Development, a four-person team funded by about $14 million in federal grants. It carried out the Environment Element through projects such as updating 1,360 homes and 43 commercial buildings to be more energy efficient, saving their owners a combined nearly $800,000 in energy costs. Stothert cut the office after its grant expired.

Since 2017, the city has updated about 127 homes through a similar

ERIC WILLIAMS, CHAIR OF THE OPPD BOARD OF DIRECTORS

program, according to Wyatt Tuell, a city planner who oversees the program.

Some of the work started by the sustainability office has continued, said former staff member Eric Williams who is now chair of the Omaha Public Power District Board of Directors.

Omaha’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions In 2009, the Omaha community produced 7,736,659 metric tons of carbon dioxide — enough that if compacted together would be about 20 times heavier than the Empire State Building.

These gases, emitted during the burning of fossil fuels often to power cars or generate electricity, collect in the Earth’s atmosphere and contribute to global warming. This is the only emissions inventory the city has compiled.

In 2011, the Office of Sustainable Development changed most of the city’s traffic signals to LED bulbs.

Williams said streetlights were to be the next step before the office disbanded. In 2018, OPPD picked up the work. From 2020 to 2023, it changed thousands of streetlights to LED bulbs. That coincided with a $2.5 million reduction in the city’s annual electricity bill.

Remembering these missed opportunities makes it hard for Williams to take the city seriously when it promises this time will be different.

“I’m sure you’ll find a bunch of people who have grown weary of completing a plan that highlights benefits for the community, that then does not translate into any specific action,” Williams said.

City emails obtained by The Reader seem to reflect a lack of commitment. From 2013 until the city pursued a new climate plan in 2021, officials in the mayor’s office and members of the Omaha City Council rarely discussed climate change. More often, they would respond to (or ignore) constituents concerned about city decisions, such as a mayoral veto of a plastic bag ban in 2019 or passing a waste collection contract that scaled back composting the same year. The city now composts about a sixth of what it did in 2005, though recycling is up about 35%, according to city estimates.

Dozens of Omahans emailed the mayor in 2017 when then-President Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement, an international commitment reached two years earlier to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As many U.S. mayors reaffirmed their support for climate action, Stothert sent constituents an email cataloging the city’s recent environmental work. She did not mention climate change or the reaction from other mayors.

Commercial buildings

On-road transportation

Propane

Residential buildings

Airline transportation

Solid waste

Industrial buildings

Rail transportation

Chart: Chris Bowling • Source: City of Omaha 2011 Emissions Inventory Report

federal mandate. It will also soon be able to sell natural gas harnessed from methane captured at its primary wastewater treatment plant. Waste collection trucks contracted by the city run on natural gas, and there are 70 free electric vehicle charging stations in the city, according to ChargeHub.

Still, the city has made strides.

In 2020 the regional transit authority introduced its first rapidtransit bus line. The city is working on a $306 million streetcar line, projected to open in 2026. The city hopes it will generate $3 billion in investment in its urban core, attract a younger workforce and take cars off the road as people utilize multimodal transit.

It’s spending $2 billion to update its sewers to discharge cleaner water into the Missouri River — part of a

The city also adopted policies such as Complete Streets, which prioritizes multi-modal transit, and Vision Zero,

which aims to make streets safer. And while the city didn’t meet many of its 2010 goals, it has made progress.

With a formal plan, it can go even further, Miller said.

“Like most communities, we’re more reactive than proactive.

And that’s always been an issue of mine. So we need to become more proactive with [climate change],” Miller said. “So I’m excited for this climate action plan. And I think using the experience that we went through with the Environment Element, we can figure out what went well, what didn’t go well and what we need to do differently.”

Not Rocket Science Pete Festersen, a longtime Omaha City Council member

September 2023

9

N E W S and current president, represents midtown Omaha, including his own neighborhood in Dundee, where many people bike, install solar panels and fill gardens with flowers and produce. While he’s occasionally spoken out on environmental issues, he said it’s been challenging.

Chief among his complaints is the city has no employee whose sole focus is climate action. That should change soon as the city announced in late August it would hire a full-time staff member to oversee the plan.

“That’s best practice everywhere this has been done,” Festersen said, “and I think that’s part of the challenge we’re experiencing right now with some of these delays and clunky timelines.”

After Stothert launched the city’s climate plan in February 2021, the plan spent more than a year lingering inside Metro Smart Cities, a combination of civic, business and nonprofit leaders, tasked with leading the plan. In September 2022, Festersen tried to fold the plan into the city’s budget, a resolution that the mayor vetoed.

In March 2023, Omaha selected Minnesota-based contractor paleBLUEdot to lead climate planning and local consulting firm HDR to lead community engagement. However, the $376,000 contract wouldn’t be signed until August due to a change in funding.

Floreani said despite the delays the city is headed in the right direction.

“Young people have said that this is an important issue and they want to be in a community that’s focused on adaption and being proactive,” Floreani said. “From a business perspective, too, companies are thinking about risk. They want to be in a community, or they want to grow in a community, that is serious

about future risks. A lot of risk can be associated with climate change resiliency issues.”

Redmond with paleBLUEdot isn’t worried that his firm will come up with an actionable plan. It’s sticking to it that’s challenging.

The agreement the city signed with paleBLUEdot, which has completed climate action plans in cities such as La Crosse, Wisconsin; Bloomington, Indiana; and Hartford, Vermont, calls for research into environmental policy, community engagement and an inventory of the city’s greenhouse gas production.

The final plan was slated to take 18 months and arrive in June 2024.

That has since been pushed back to November 2024, said Ted Redmond, co-founder of paleBLUEdot.

There are a lot of similarities between Omaha and Cincinnati, Ohio.

Jesse Bell, a climate and health scientist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said this plan will be essential in answering many unknowns about Omaha’s climate vulnerabilities.

Both are Midwestern river towns.

Omahans (affectionately or not) refer to Council Bluffs, Iowa — their neighbor across the Missouri River — as “Council-tucky.” Cincinnatians live across the Ohio River from Kentucky.

“We will see changes in heat waves, flooding, droughts, severe storms,” he said. “What does that potentially mean for Omaha? Where are susceptible populations? What are those issues within infrastructure?

There’s still work that needs to be done.”

Both cities’ early prosperity thrived on meatpacking industries. Both spent the late 20th century slumping into urban decay.

Some are digging deeper into those questions. UNMC research is examining urban heat islands: neighborhoods with fewer trees, green space and water which, in Omaha, can be nearly 10 degrees hotter than other areas. Children have higher rates of asthma in East Omaha, where more poor and communities of color live alongside industrial pollution, studies show.

Temperature increases are also leading to longer allergy seasons as well as leading more virus-carrying ticks to migrate into Nebraska.

But to go any further, Bell said comprehensive research and prioritized strategies are needed.

A SIGN NOTIFIES RESIDENTS IN NORTH OMAHA OF AN ONGOING SEWER PROJECT, PART OF A $2 BILLION FEDERAL MANDATE FOR OMAHA TO DISCHARGE CLEANER WATER INTO THE MISSOURI RIVER.

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talked to [Floreani] he seemed really invested in it. I was impressed.”

That is the basic responsibility of a climate action plan, and so far Bell is optimistic the city will accomplish that. When the city was reviewing applications, Floreani called Bell and asked for his help.

“The fact that they even reached out to me, I felt like they were taking it seriously,” Bell said. “It wasn’t just we’re going to do this to do it. And when I

September 2023

“Climate action is not for the timid,” Redmond said. “This is not rocket science. We know the things that we need to do. But it is really hard to get it to happen.”

Across the River

In the 2000s both cities began rebuilding. And in the late 2000s both issued ambitious environmental plans. The only difference is Cincinnati stuck with its.

“At the end of the day, I think it’s about people’s commitment to making it happen and being able to find alternative approaches,” said Oliver Kroner, sustainability director for the City of Cincinnati. “I think it’s easy to say ‘These are the five things you need to do.’ But at any given moment, you can’t make progress on those five things. So having a broader, scattershot approach is effective.”

Since 1991, more than 600 local governments across the U.S. have passed climate action plans. But just passing a plan isn’t enough. A 2020 study from the Brookings Institution found two-thirds of the largest cities that made commitments to lower greenhouse gas emissions were lagging on their targets. A primary reason? The goals aren’t adopted into policy.

Cincinnati hasn’t had that problem.

Since passing its Green Cincinnati Plan in 2008, the city has reduced carbon emissions by 36.6% and aims to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

The city has also contracted what’s being called the largest municipal solar farm in the nation — a site

the size of 680 football fields with 310,000 solar panels — part of its plan to use 100% renewable energy for city operations by 2035.

In 2023 the city updated its plan for the fourth time. Over six months, the city’s sustainability office gathered suggestions from 3,766 residents through in-person and virtual meetings as well as surveys, one of the most extensive engagement processes the city has ever done, according to the report.

The city’s online climate dashboard now includes 130 recommended policies or commitments.

For Kroner, time and consistency have been the keys to success.

Because politicians are more aware of climate issues, it makes integrating recommendations into policy easier.

And because the city’s built trusting relationships in the community, citywide buy-in comes naturally.

“For a city whose driving for carbon neutrality like we are, that really means engaging community partners that are not municipal operators,” Kroner said. “We’re doing everything we can to eliminate our 3.5% of the carbon pie, but there’s much more focus on bringing partners into the fold and understanding where we can build relationships that can help us go further faster.”

The need for leadership became clear when then-President Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement, Kroner said. Suddenly Cincinnati, which has primarily had Democratic mayors since the early 1970s, had to come up with its own answers.

The energy required to power buildings accounts for 39% of global emissions, according to the International Energy Agency, although that number is typically higher in cities.

To lower emissions, Cincinnati has built networks through the 2030 District — an initiative in 24 U.S. cities that calls on businesses to reduce energy consumption, water usage and transportation emissions to zero by 2040. Cincinnati’s partners include Fortune 500 companies such as Procter & Gamble and Kroger as well as museums, breweries and cafes.

In total, they represent 28.2 million square feet of commercial space.

Other cities are on similar tracks.

Last year, Des Moines had the second-most buildings of any midsized city certified as Energy Star, a

N E W S standard for extremely efficient buildings.

Des Moines’ 49 buildings collectively saved $1.8 million in energy bills and averted 10,700 metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to data from the federal government.

By comparison, Omaha had nine buildings certified last year. Lincoln had 12, nine of which are Lincoln Public Schools buildings.

Omaha Fails to Reach Many Environmental Goals In 2010 the City of Omaha passed the Environment Element that laid out 31 goals for the city to reach by 2020 and 2030. As of 2022 the city is either off track or failed to meet 18 of them. It met 3 of them and The Reader was unable to measure success on 10 .

Cars pass on I-480 as industrial smoke billows in South Omaha.

Homes account for about 20% of the United States’ greenhouse gasses, according to the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. That includes low-income homes where people typically live in less-efficient buildings and are overburdened by utility bills. While Omaha and Nebraska have programs to retrofit these homes at no cost to the homeowner, they’re outpaced by cities such as Minneapolis, which has upgraded close to 3,000 low-income homes as part of its Green Cost Share program.

Holtzclaw has been hard at work pitching energy-efficiency upgrades to businesses around the country — especially since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, a federal bill that has created significant tax incentives for such work. Nebraska is where he’s had the least luck, he said.

“I will make the same pitch to somebody in Des Moines or Minneapolis and they’ll be like, ‘Where do I sign?’” Holtzclaw said.

“Here, it’s the same pitch. They’re making the same amount of money, I do the same work. I follow up like three or four times and never hear back.”

It’s not true to say Omahans don’t care about sustainability or climate change, according to 17-year-old climate activist Kiera Ginn.

While the City of Omaha does not have a climate plan, other institutions in the city do. They include: the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Creighton University, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, OPPD, Metropolitan Utilities District, Union Pacific, Kiewit and Werner Enterprises.

But Ginn and others in the citywide group Students for Sustainability have questions. Is

everyone working together? Is addressing climate change really a priority? Are we moving fast enough?

And where are we heading?

Earlier this year, they offered to help the city with its climate action plan. They had a meeting, but that was months ago. They haven’t heard much since.

So, like many others, they’re hoping for the best. But growing up here, they’ve also learned to measure their expectations.

“In a sense, it’s discouraging,” Ginn said, “but it’s also expected from Omaha.”

Ready to Start McMeekin shares those mixed feelings. The city is making promises, but he’s heard those before.

Earlier this year, the world’s top scientists released a hulking assessment on everything we know about climate change. The outlook has only gotten more grim.

“This report is a clarion call to massively fast-track climate efforts by every country and every sector and on every time frame,” U.N. SecretaryGeneral António Guterres said in March. “Our world needs climate action on all fronts: everything, everywhere, all at once.”

Omaha may have missed its chance to launch into climate action in 2010. But it’s not too late, McMeekin said. And the city doesn’t need to solve the world’s climate problems. It doesn’t even need to fix all of its own right now.

It just needs to find somewhere to start.

Table: Chris Bowling • Source: Trust for Public Land, Nebraska Department of Energy & Environment, EPA, U.S. Census Bureau, Metro Area Planning Agency, OPPD, MUD, City of Omaha, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Goal

Year Outcome

All Omaha residents within one-half mile of public open space.

2020

Unmet

Achieve State Surface Water Quality Standards in Omaha lakes and streams.

2025

n/a

Reduce the number of air quality related health alert days to 10 by 2020.

2020

Achieved

Reduce night sky luminance to less than 200% NNSL (Natural Nighttime Sky Luminance) in public parks and open spaces and 20% below 2012 levels everywhere else.

2020

n/a

Reach a population density of 4,500 people per square mile.

2030

Off track

Reduce transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions 30% by 2030.

2030

n/a

10% of all trips in Omaha will be made by walking, biking or taking public transit.

2030

Off track

Less than 65% of all work commuting trips will be made in single-occupancy automobiles.

2030

Off track

Decrease per capita motor vehicle miles traveled by 10% by 2030.

2030 Questionable data

All new buildings and major renovations shall be 24% more efficient than ASHRAE 90.1 – 2007.

2030

Achieved

Annually renovate a minimum of 5% of the city’s 2010 building area to be 24% more efficient than ASHRAE 90.1 – 2007.

2030

Unmet

The energy consumption standards for all new buildings and major renovations shall be progressively increased by an average of 4% annually to achieve net-zero energy.

2030

Unmet

All new construction and major renovations shall be designed to achieve a minimum Home Energy Rating System (HERS) index of 70.

2030

n/a

Annually renovate a minimum of 5% of the city’s existing homes to achieve a minimum HERS index of 70.

2030

n/a

All new construction and major renovations will reach net-zero energy use.

2030

Unmet

All new buildings and major renovations shall achieve 40% of the 2030 total possible points on the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) 2009 checklist.

Unmet

Reduce construction waste contributions to an amount that approaches zero.

2030

Unmet

Develop and monitor a set of indicators to achieve the Environment Element.

n/a

Unmet

Establish a committee to review the data on a bi-annual basis and issue a report on the City’s progress on the Environment Element.

n/a

Unmet

Reduce energy use per capita by 20%.

2020

Unmet

Increase the use of renewable energy to 20%.

2020

Achieved

Reduce total water use per capita by 20%.

2020

Unmet

Increase waste diversion through recycling and composting by 20%.

2020

Unmet

Reduce total waste by 20%.

2020

Unmet

Increase the percentage of adults engaged in physical activity.

2020

Unmet

Increase the number of youth involved in physical activity.

2020

n/a

Increase in the number city officials who are Crime Prevention through Environmental Design certified.

2020

n/a

Decrease the percentage of adults with Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than 30.

2020

Unmet

Decrease the percentage of youth with a BMI in the 95th percentile.

2020

n/a

Increase percentage of adults who consume 5 or more servings of fruit and vegetable consumption per day.

2020

n/a

Increase the percentage of kids who consume 5 or more servings 2020 of fruits and vegetables per day.

n/a

September 2023

11

N E W S

Omaha and Omaha Climate Change Goes Native

A Q&A with Nebraska’s Climatologist Martha Durr

by Jane McGill

W

hile Omaha develops its climate plan, The Reader sat down with Martha Durr, Nebraska’s climatologist and a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, to understand what threats climate change poses to the Omaha area.

have as much shade. So, it’s hotter in these [poor] areas and there’s less of a capability to handle these exacerbated temperatures.

TR: What is the biggest difference between how you expect climate change to affect greater Nebraska versus Omaha This interview has been edited for clarity, and Lincoln? style and length.

MD: I think the effects of extreme The Reader: How can we expect precipitation, like heavy rainfall events, climate change to affect Omaha? are going to be exacerbated in urban areas where you’ve got a lot of concrete, Martha Durr: The key issues for roads and buildings and so forth. We Nebraska are heat events. With Omaha in also have a tendency for people to move particular, I think about the underprivfrom rural to urban areas. So we need ileged communities that don’t have the to make sure that we are building urban ability to stay cool in the summertime. infrastructure that can handle both the Another thing is an increase in frequency hot, dry periods and these high intensity of extreme events, like flash flood events. rainfall events.

And then on the flip side of things when it’s too dry, we need to be prepared for TR: How much variability is there in having too little water as well. In 2021, these models based on how fast we we had the warmest December on decarbonize? record. So we need to be prepared for these weather events that happen at any MD: In climate projections, there’s fast decarbonization and then there’s time of year. business as usual. And the difference Another consideration is that changes between those two climate futures is in other parts of the world could impact quite significant. If we don’t pursue us. Wildfires in the western half of the [emissions] reduction measures, we’re U.S. are very likely going to increase. looking at no stabilization of our climate So people could have their respiratory and just kind of these runaway climate system compromised from smoke from impacts. It’s critical that everybody do wildfires that are happening elsewhere. their part, from the personal level, to Another important part of this is climate the city, state, to the country, to set refugees. People will move into an area these goals that let us keep our global from another area because climate-relat­ temperature rise within a 1.5 degrees ed events have driven them out. Some of Celsius of pre-industrial time. them will likely come into Omaha or into TR: What can our readers do to protect Nebraska. themselves, their family and their One more thing we should be thinking community from the impacts of climate about is the cost of dealing with these change? extremes. The cost to recover from things MD: In terms of mitigative action, you like drought, floods and wildfires is going up. Some people maybe won’t be can vote with your dollars. Look at able to afford insurance because it’s just your retirement accounts and ask, are you putting money into the fossil fuel getting too costly. industry? What are your consumption TR: Can you speak to how climate practices and how can you keep those as change will affect disadvantaged low and as local as possible? communities?

We can also focus on our mental health MD: [In urban areas] there’s a lot of and make sure that we are doing okay. concrete, there’s a lot of absorption of Climate anxiety is a significant mental energy and it retains that energy. So health issue. You want to make sure the amount of change [felt in urban that you are moving anxiety into some environments] is going to be even sort of action, which will hopefully help more intense. Poor areas typically don’t with your overall mental have trees, don’t have parks, and don’t well-being.

12

September 2023

How homeowners are bringing the prairie back to their lawns

by Jane McGill

T

he yard is full of spindly prairie grass and multicolored flowers swaying gently in the wind. A scent vaguely reminiscent of vanilla wafts through the air as birds, bees and butterflies whiz by.

“It’s nice to have it in your own backyard,” said Gene Pollock, who fills his lawn with native plants, foliage that occurs naturally in Nebraska’s landscape. “Walking by and smelling the beautiful scent of milkweed in bloom, seeing the birds, it calms me.”

But the benefits of native prairie plants are not just therapeutic.

Experts say they are essential to promoting biodiversity and curbing the effects of climate change and ecological degradation. While Omahans

like Pollock are committed to cultivating natural landscapes, they face challenges from restrictive ordinances in Omaha as well as neighbors who’d rather see neat lawns of green grass.

For now, though, native plants — of which there are 1,500 species across Nebraska’s prairies, wetlands and dry rocky outcrops — can still invite visits from city code enforcers. Omaha’s Municipal Code prohibits residents from growing any “worthless vegetation” over 12 inches in height. While they’re meant to cull unruly yards, designed landscapes are often targeted, native growers say.

“They get a complaint and then they send out some city inspector that doesn’t have a clue what

Julien and Murphy Wulfgar sit among their native plants. PHOTOS BY Chris Bowling.

N E W S they’re looking at,” Pollock said.

“They just get a ruler out and say ‘Too high.’”

The City of Omaha Code Enforcement did not respond to requests for comment.

Julien Wulfgar, a part-time instructor in the Religious Studies department at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and owner of the dog-sitting business Wulfgar Yardworks, also had a run-in with code enforcement over sunflowers.

Wulfgar and her husband began planting natives, including coneflower, asters, compass plant, goldenrod, and milkweed, as a way to mitigate their ecological impact. Nationwide, nearly nine billion gallons of water are used on residential landscapes every day, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Native plants often require less water as well as no pesticides or fertilizers.

In addition, the extensive root systems of native prairie grasses prevent erosion and can capture and sequester carbon pollution deep into the soil.

Why then, Wulfgar wonders, would anyone want a grass lawn?

“If you’re just a logical person, it doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “You’re spending money to poison your ground by fertilizing it, wasting water that can be used for other things, and polluting the air by mowing it. It’s like a crazy person’s dream.”

Soon, their native plantings were buzzing with pollinators.

Two sets of cardinals made their lawn home. They initially planted sunflowers in their front yard as well, but were forced to remove them after someone repeatedly complained to the city that they were too close to the road.

Wulfgar said she told Code Enforcement she was growing native plants to increase biodiversity in their yards. Wulfgar cut down the sunflowers after the city threatened to issue her a fine.

“It’s just so ridiculous,” she said.

“Who decides what is worthless?

This is all based on tradition and what has been deemed acceptable.”

Omaha’s code is behind the times, according to Douglas Tallamay, a professor of

entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware who’s 2008 book “Bringing Nature Home” was instrumental in popularizing the native plant movement in the United States.

When asked to review Omaha’s code, Tallamay said he found it to be “hostile to native plants and full of unsupported nonsense.

The ordinance needs “to be totally rewritten in view of the biodiversity crisis that really does pose health risks to us all.”

Despite the contents of the code, the City of Omaha has been incorporating native plants to help with things like stormwater retention, according to Andy Szatko, engineering technician for Omaha Stormwater, a city program to lessen pollution into local streams and lakes from water runoff. Native plants have also been used extensively to landscape the collection of parks that make up The Riverfront. Signs outside the Luminarium warn visitors to stay off the grass as a newly planted young prairie takes root. “[Native plants] definitely should be used, but their proper use is very important,” he said. “If you’re designing a landscape there’s no reason not to use native plants, if it makes sense for the look and style of it. We want to use them, but to put them in an environment that is highly urbanized, like the median of a four-lane road, it might not perform very well.”

However, integrating natives can still be challenging. In 2019, the City of Ralston rolled back plans to allow tall prairie grasses to grow in lesser-used areas of parks after residents complained.

In Maryland, a couple sued their Homeowners Association after they were ordered to replace native plants with turf grass. The ensuing legal battle inspired the Maryland State Legislature to nearly unanimously pass a law

curbing the ability of HOAs to restrict native grasses in lawns.

Even when people want to plant natives, they can be hard to find, Tallamay said.

“Demand for native plants far exceeds supply,” he said.

That’s been A bee lands on a coneflower in Julien Nathan Duffy’s Wulfgar’s lawn on June 30, 2023. experience.

Duffy is the firm outside of Lincoln that owner and founder of Midwest does environmental surveys for Natives Nursery, a greenhouse in organizations working in areas Lincoln that exclusively sells plants with native plants. After Kottas native to the Great Plains. Native discovered how difficult it was to plants can also be purchased at find native plants, she bought her nurseries and garden stores like family’s farm in Saline County and Mulhall’s and Indian Creek. began using it to grow them.

“This season has been Prairie Legacy employees just absolutely crazy collect seed from remnants of the for us,” Duffy said. natural prairie across Nebraska to “We can barely grow in their greenhouse. Kottas keep up. It’s a said that she has struggled to really good find workers for her nursery in problem to Saline County, with most of her have.” employees driving the 50 miles Duffy’s from Lincoln to her farm. She interest estimated that she sells half of bloomed all natives she produced in the when he Omaha metro area, where she’s learned how optimistic that prairie restoration the decline of can offset losses in rural areas due the grassland to commercial farming. prairie, one of the “There’s so much development most endangered and [in Omaha],” said Kottas. “If you least protected biomes in converted a third of yards of the world, was affecting birds, single-family homes in Omaha insects and other animals while he built in the past few years to was a student at the University of native, you would mitigate the Nebraska-Lincoln. amount of greenspace in rural “Our native pollinators have areas that was plowed up.” a very unique relationship with As for transforming your own native plants due to thousands lawn, Kottas said people should of years of evolution where research what species might work pollinators basically evolved with best in their neighborhoods. these plants,” said Duffy, who There are varieties of milkweed, founded Midwest Natives Nursery for example, and not all will be a in 2018 after graduating from good match. Natives also don’t UNL with a bachelor’s degree in need to be unruly or take over horticulture. “If you start to lose your property. They can fit into the plants, you can start to lose your existing designs, Duffy said, pollinators, which can create this or be a good way to start building vicious cycle of decline for both your own garden. species.”

For Kay Kottas, growing native is also a necessity. Kottas is founder and president of Prairie Legacy Inc., a consulting

“You don’t have to rip up your entire lawn all at once,” Duffy said.

“It just takes one plant to start out with.”

September 2023

13

N E W S

Stories From the Heart

Staff and Residents Impacted by PRISON Share Solutions in Omaha Nonprofit’s Short Film

by Bridget Fogarty Editor’s note: THE READER AS­ SISTED HEART MINISTRY CENTER IN THE CONCEPTUAL STAGE OF ITS DOCUMENTARY, INCLUDING PRO­ VIDING THE ORGANIZATION WITH TRAUMA-INFORMED REPORTING TECHNIQUES, BUT WAS NOT IN­ VOLVED IN ITS PRODUCTION.

focus these initial interviews on the criminal justice system.

Sheena Carman, who works as a facilitator for the center’s Fresh Start job training program, said the interviews gave her the chance to learn more about some of the people she works with.

A

my Holmes has seen how the people most impacted by incarceration can be the least heard when it comes to improving the system.

“It’s a big ask to have some­ one who works full time and takes care of children drive to Lincoln, take off a full day of work and spend 12 hours in a hearing room to give testimo­ ny for our Legislature,” said Holmes, who is the chief advo­ cacy officer at Heart Ministry Center, a nonprofit that helps Omahans affected by poverty.

“But we can give them another platform.”

That’s why she and her team created the Heart Ministry Center Storytelling project, a 30-minute film featuring person­ al stories from staff and commu­ nity members about the impacts prison has had on themselves and their families. The team plans to share the film with lawmakers and leaders through­ out Omaha and Nebraska to inspire change on issues like the disproportionate incarceration rates of Black Nebraskans and the trauma of reentry.

“The Heart Ministry Center is interested in helping to solve the problems that lead people to need our services in the first place,” Holmes said. “So if we’re really committed to that, we’ve got to hear from those people

14

“If you have not been directly affected by courts or jails or pris­ ons, or indirectly with a family member, you don’t really have a good idea of what the process looks like or how it can affect the mental health of the person being incarcerated or their fami­ ly members,” Carman said.

HEART MINISTRY CENTER STAFF AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS SHARE STORIES IN THE NONPROFIT’S NEW SHORT FILM ABOUT THE IMPACTS OF INCARCERATION. Photo provided by the Heart Ministry Center. who have the most informed opinions about what needs to change and those people are the people who have the lived experience.”

The YouTube video includes reflections from the nonprofit’s late CEO Mark Dahir, 48, who passed away suddenly of a heart attack in early August just weeks after interviewing for the project.

Holmes said she and Dahir worked on a concept for a storytelling project for the last two years. Both had often been asked to share their stories, Holmes said — Mark’s story of his own incarceration and Holmes’ story of a family mem­ ber’s incarceration.

September 2023

“It didn’t feel supportive, but more like we were on display,” Holmes said in an email to The Reader. “We were determined to make this project about the importance of the people being interviewed. We want everyone to see our humanity and realize that the person giving the interview is an individual who matters.”

In the spring, Holmes met with media and community partners to talk about ways they could create more space for North Omaha residents to share their perspectives on issues af­ fecting their communities. In col­ laboration with the Omaha Star, Spark CDI, 1st Sky Omaha, RISE, Omaha Documenters, FRESH Floral, and The Reader, the Heart Ministry Center staff decided to

Carman also decided to sit down for an interview and share what it was like for her to give birth to her child while incarcerated in the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women.

She felt it was a beautiful experi­ ence because her son stayed by her side for the first five months of his life thanks to the prison nursery program.

“That’s why there’s a program like that, because it works,” Carman said. “It doesn’t take that bond away from a child and its mother.”

The team took care to interview people in a trauma-in­ formed way, Holmes said. All interviews were conducted by Heart Ministry staff members, and those who shared their story got to review the video before their responses were shared with the public.

Dani Rogers, the CEO admin­ istrator at Heart Ministry, said although being in prison was traumatic, she decided to share

NEWS

The YouTube video includes reflections from the nonprofit’s late CEO Mark Dahir, 48, who passed away suddenly of a heart attack in early August just weeks after interviewing for the project. Photo provided by the Heart Ministry Center. her experience for the project.

She wants lawmakers and peo­ ple within the system to better understand the complex and lasting impact of being incar­ cerated. Rogers also hopes the video reaches people who feel ashamed or nervous to share their own story.

“Maybe it gives them the opportunity, or that little nudge to talk about the things that they’ve been through.”

You can watch the short film in full on YouTube. Learn more about the Heart Ministry Center at the organization’s website.

Share your story for the project by contacting Amy Holmes at amy@heartministrycenter.org Read a full statement from Amy Holmes following the death of Mark Dahir, the Heart Ministry Center CEO: Mark and I worked together on the concept for the project for the last two years. It was very important to us that we provided a platform for people who might not otherwise have one. It was also very important that those participating did not feel exploited. Both Mark and I have been in positions where we were asked to share our “story” and it didn’t feel supportive, but more like we were on display.

We were determined to make this project about the importance of the people being interviewed. We want everyone to see our humanity and realize that the person giving

the interview is an individual who matters.

I am proud that the participants reported feeling supported in the process. After Mark finished his interview, he said, “I cannot tell you how comfortable Octavia [the interviewer] made me feel.” I thanked Mark for bringing his full self to the interview and he said the process was healing and he was grateful for a space where he could be vulnerable.

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In one of the last conversations I had with Mark, he encouraged me to share more and he suggested I give an interview. I told him that it was hard for me because I had never worked someplace where I could really share my authentic self. He told me that we were both getting too old to pretend to be something we’re not.

Like Mark, many Heart Ministry staff have experienced some of life’s toughest challenges. Mark helped to create a space where talented people could get a job, a second chance and give something back. He understood the healing power of helping others because it was healing for him every day. As he often said, “We need this place just as much as it needs us.” I think that give and take between the staff and community members is what makes Heart Ministry so special. The people we serve are healing every day and the staff are healing every day, too.

September 2023

15

N E W S

The Reader News Team Signs Off Reflections, Memories and Looking Toward The Future

by Chris Bowling

I

n 2020, news stories about protests and social injustice were hard to miss. A year later they’d started to disappear. Unless something else forced Americans (mainly white Americans) to confront the present ills of racism and inequity, there’d probably be fewer stories the year after.

We didn’t want The Reader to follow suit. Our solution? Create beats and make covering inequali­ ty — historically, currently, in data, anecdotally, etc. — central to their focuses.

We called the project (DIS) Invested, a nod to the fact these problems perpetuate not because they’re unsolvable, but because we choose not to invest our time, energy and money into fixing them.

I started at The Reader in January 2020 — effectively reviving the news department that hadn’t had a permanent staff member in about a decade. Bridget Fogarty came on in the summer of 2021.

We had help from part-time re­ porters, including Leah Cates and Arjav Rawal, as well as our editor Robyn Murray, and the goals we’d set were big. At times I wondered if we were ambitious or just naive.

But over the next year, we pro­ duced dozens of stories, which we discussed often on 1st Sky’s radio show. A few won awards. Some made waves in the community.

I think (DIS)Invested illustrates what kind of news team we want­ ed to be.

16

We have a very small staff. Yet, we always set our sights far above the horizon. Why? Honestly, no one else was doing it. And be­ cause telling stories here is fun.

So with this being The Reader’s last issue, we wanted to highlight some of our favorite work from the past few years as well as be transparent about the values that drove us. We’d also like to point out where you can find similar information to The Reader’s as we discontinue publishing.

truant kids, whom districts like Omaha Public Schools are letting fall through the cracks.

The list could go on, but we hope you’ll read more about our (DIS)Invested series on thereader. com/disinvested.

Investigative Stories

Equity Our news coverage started with the COVID-19 pandemic.

From the beginning, equity was our guiding principle.

We wrote about how more non-white Omahans were suf­ fering from the virus as well as how Nebraska failed meatpacking workers whose industry became a transmission hotbed.

When Minneapolis police murdered George Floyd, we invited community leaders to write opinions on how Omaha should respond to this reckoning. We cov­ ered the death of James Scurlock.

The mural his brother painted became our July 2020 cover.

We also investigated police accountability, traffic stops, grass­ roots efforts to curb violence and more. We followed Omaha high school students advocating for non-whitewashed history lessons.

Our story led publishers to change textbooks. We wrote stories about nonprofits helping chronically

SEPTEMBER 2023

This is how journalism should be. We know there will always be reporters who pop in and out of people’s lives (we’re guilty of it too), but giving others the tools to tell their own stories produces better, more authentic information that can really make an impact.

Community Relationships Our work would mean abso­ lutely nothing without the trust we’ve built in the community.

You give us time, grace and vulnerability. You tell us when we’ve got the story wrong and guide us in the right direction. If you’ve ever been a part of one of our stories, just know we are grateful beyond words.

At The Reader we’re given something many small news teams aren’t: time. Many of our stories take months of interviews, research, writing and editing. But it’s all worth it when we create real-world impacts.

When Leah Cates was an intern we had an idea for a story that looked into how U.S. history was taught in Omaha schools. The story ended up spurring publish­ ers to change their textbooks and won a national solutions journal­ ism award.

The story that best encapsu­ lates how we approach building community relations is “Stories From the Heart,” which you can read on page 14.

When Heart Ministry Services wanted to make a documentary about the effects of incarceration, something its clientele and staff know intimately, it asked Bridget to help show how to ask good, sensitive questions.

Leah also did a deep dive into a curious statistic — Nebraska denies people for welfare at one of the highest rates in the country. What we ended up finding is the state is sitting on more than $100 million

N E W S in welfare money with few plans to spend it. Meanwhile, families are suffering in poverty and being turned away from help.

stories. We want to give people a chance to do ambitious journal­ ism, and we’ve been continually rewarded with creative, ambitious, thought-provoking work.

Here are a few highlights I want to share about our interns.

• Addie Costello (summer 2020) rode the bus for a week for her podcast “Taking Omaha for a Ride,” which illustrated issues in the city’s transit system.

Every few weeks I get a text saying someone at City Hall is talking about “my story” again.

Specifically a story I did in No­ vember 2021 about tax-increment financing (TIF), which is basically a tax break to spur private develop­ ment in low-income areas, though that’s not how the city’s using it.

People bring up the story often when a new TIF project is up for a vote in the City Council. I was also told recently that when a City Council member asked someone in city planning where people could go to learn about TIF, he directed them to The Reader.

Finally, we did a story showing how the city often fails to hold bad landlords accountable. As part of that story, we compiled a first-ever public list of landlords with the most code violations. The story came out more than a year ago, but I still get emails about it, specifically the database.

Opportunities for New Reporters While some newsrooms relegate newbies to grunt work, we encourage them to take on big

• Alex Preston (fall 2020) was instrumental in covering the political upheaval following the murder of George Floyd. He covered protests, schisms in the Nebraska Democratic Party and efforts to increase police oversight.

• Leah Cates’ (spring 2021) story “Let Trans Kids be Kids” human­ ized what would later become a politically volatile issue.

• Emma Schartz (summer 2021) reported on the fight over changing sex education stan­ dards in Nebraska — a story that pitted her between pissed par­ ents and exasperated experts, misinformation and science.

• Regan Thomas (fall 2021/ spring 2022) got saddled with one of my own questions: “Where is the city’s Climate Ac­ tion Plan?” We’re still waiting on that (read about it on page 13), but her story “Saving Planet Omaha” laid the groundwork for our future coverage.

• Isa Luzarraga (summer 2022) got thrown into the fire. Or, more accurately, the smoke.

When Nox-Crete’s chemical warehouse blew up in May 2022, Isa did the follow-up. She talked to neighbors, top brass at the state and scientists to get badly needed answers.

• Sydney Johnson (summer 2022) got to the bottom of why Saddle Creek Road floods so much. To get there she had to comb through obtuse stud­ ies, deal with reluctant public officials and trust her gut that the story would work. Spoiler: It did, and it’s great.

• Jane McGill (summer 2023) was the first high school student I managed, but you’d never guess her age by how talented

of a writer and reporter she is.

Her story about native lawns on page 12 in particular is one of my favorites.

• Anton Johnson started as an intern in June 2021 but stuck around until the end to cover the most electric beat — Omaha City Council and the Douglas County Board of Commission­ ers. From the start, his weekly stories were lean, informative and well-written. His live tweets made him somewhat of a mi­ crocelebrity in the city/county legislative chambers. Anton’s a true-blue reporter. He’s not try­ ing to be sensational or clever.

He just wants to help you stay a little more informed.

Increasing Climate Coverage For the past few years, The Reader staff has used the end of December to reflect on what we could have done better in the preceding year. Almost every year the main complaint was we didn’t focus enough on climate change.

Then, around the end of 2022, we won a grant through the Solutions Journalism Network to expand our climate coverage.

In 2023, we’ve done stories about how climate change is affecting birds and wildfires. We covered solutions in wind energy, solar power and sustainable agriculture. In this issue we tackle Omaha’s forthcoming climate action plan.

We started this work because we felt there was a real lack of cli­ mate coverage in the Omaha area.

Since then, whether it’s a result of our coverage or not, it seems like there are more stories about it.

We hope that continues because climate change is the most import­ ant issue of our lifetime.

What Next?

When The Reader announced it was closing, I got a variety of reactions from people.

I got sympathetic looks. People clicked their tongue against their teeth in a “well, that’s just too bad” kind of way. Others were surprised. “I haven’t seen The Reader in years,” they’d say.

Working at a newspaper is weird. Without us there are a lot of Omaha stories that would have gone uncovered.

But the omnipresence of information these days also means newspapers are no longer gatekeepers. Indeed, The Reader is far from alone in closing.

More than 360 papers have closed just since the start of the pandemic, according to a report from Northwestern University’s journalism school.

That’s why we need to continue investing in local journalism like 1st Sky, Flatwater Free Press, the Nebraska Examiner, the Omaha Star, Telemundo, Mundo Latino, the Omaha World-Herald and Nebraska Public Media. Blogs like Seeing Red Nebraska and Strongly Worded Letters also provide much-needed commentary.

More importantly, what we think Omaha needs to figure out is how to empower communities to tell their own stories.

Omaha Documenters is off to a great start in that work.

There’s also talk of new coalitions forming to wrest control of their communities’ stories.

What does all this mean for the future? I don’t know. I just know stories are powerful.

They can change minds and laws. And most of us have a story to tell. So get involved with your neighborhood group, write a Medium post, call up your local newspaper, stage a protest or do something that gets your skin in the game. Fighting misinformation, government complacency and inequity is a contact sport anyone can play.

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Farewell,

Omaha!

T H E

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Editorial Staff Reflections Standing Here at the End Everything.

Everything ends.

Whether we are there to see it or not, whether we pretend it doesn’t happen or accept it, everything, everything, everything ends.

I don’t remember the first time I picked up a copy of The Reader, but it was almost certainly in the Old Market, killing time before attending an event described within its pages. It was almost certainly waiting for a table at a local restaurant, the kind reviewed in loving detail by the publication. It was almost certainly while seated for a show to start at a local theater, a play that would be reviewed by a future colleague.

It made Omaha feel bigger, this little paper.

Of all the things I will miss about The Reader is how it made me feel about this city most of all. I will miss how it so obviously, openly, nakedly cared about this small town in urban drag. How it circled the cancerous flaws that needed to be excised for our collective health. How it always, always, always pointed to an idealized version of what our home could be.

Is that overdoing it? Am I overdoing it? Ah, who cares, it’s all over now.

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And all we’re left with are the ink-stained memories, the scrapbooked snapshots of bigdeal news and small-scale events that felt like big-deal news to the people putting them on and attending them. I’ll treasure the first cover story I wrote, seeing the faces of friends who made their own front pages, and smiling whenever I saw a crumpled-up copy in the backseat of someone’s car.

Speaking of trash, the first person I knew who really, truly gave a shit about climate change is John Heaston. I like to think he is proud of how many times our print copies were recycled into kindling for charcoal grills or lined litterboxes. Everything ends, but in the best cases, it gets turned into something new.

The Reader was as much an attitude or idea as it was a tangible print magazine or newspaper.

The shape of the thing physically changed so many times over the years that I lost count. Now it’s assuming its final form. It is moving from a hardcopy to a way of thinking. It is an idea planted inside everyone who worked here, everyone who ever read anything in it, and it will keep growing in a myriad of ways.

I am giddy to see what our news teams, our critics, our commentators, our editorialists, our frequent contributors, and one-time correspondents will make next.

So many have already gone on to do such great things, taking from their time at this publication what they needed to become who they would be and create what they

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would dream up next. It is thrilling to think of everyone scattered like pollen, growing in whatever fertile ground they land on.

But I am heartbroken. Whenever we are forced to admit something is ending, when our force fields of denial run out of juice, we look for positives and run from the pain. Better to let it in, I think.

Better to hold it. Better to make a small room for it, in our hearts and minds, than to excuse it from ourselves altogether.

I am going to miss everyone.

Some of our ranks have been gone in the most painful way possible for a while now. I will lose touch with colleagues that I don’t mean to let go of. I will not have an excuse or reason to routinely keep tabs on people I have come to respect very much.

I am terrified that Omaha will not have a place for stories that don’t fit a conservative world view. I am fearful that we won’t have anyone asking questions for those without a voice. I am worried that I won’t have that feeling of seeing the best version of this place again.

I am sad. I am sad that this is ending. But above all, I am grateful for having been here. I am deeply, profoundly thankful to have spent time with these folks doing this work. I am hopeful for what those people can do locally and elsewhere. I am, as much as I can be, content standing here at the end.

What now?

— Ryan Syrek, film critic

The Reader Kept My Plate and Heart Full In my decade of reading and writing dining reviews for numerous publications, I rarely see the value in reading someone else’s experience of an establishment. For the same reason that someone else looking gorgeous in low-rise jeans or six-inch heels can’t persuade me to buy them. Food and fashion are incredibly unique-to-you experiences. I have received still-frozen food at some of Omaha’s favorite restaurants. I have frequented places that are often panned for their lack of service because the food matters more than manners.

None of us should be judged by our best or our worst days.

Instead, I have been incredibly privileged to spend the last eight years learning about the chefs, servers, farmers, recipes, and restauranteurs that have made Omaha a dining destination for foodies across the country. I’ve been given the opportunity to fall in love with a city that I once could not wait to escape. And I’ve gotten to do so among a team of writers and creators who are fiercely dedicated to honest portrayals of life in Omaha.

I had a unique opportunity to use these pages to navigate my own complicated relationship with food, and to heal parts of

F A R E W E L L , myself that were programmed to believe I didn’t deserve to eat. And through these pages, I found a way to take control of my life beyond managing an eating disorder. To take back a life that had been confiscated.

When I wrote my first dining column for The Reader, I was an isolated new mom. By design, I had no money and no prospects to acquire it. What I had was a quickly shrinking circle of friends and business acquaintances to reach out to, and an increasingly desperate need to reach out to absolutely anyone. When I finally left a relationship – pregnant and suddenly solo with two toddlers and the mountain of family court still to climb, I was handed exactly what I needed through The Reader and Pioneer Publishing.

I didn’t explain my situation to John Heaston when I reached out to him. I simply told him I needed work. Immediately. He knows everyone, and I assumed he could tell me where to look. If you’ve ever found yourself telling John that you need a job, a reference, or the very shirt off his back, you’ll know how dizzyingly fast I found myself building a legitimate portfolio of writing samples. He didn’t ask me why. He asked if I was OK, and he asked if there was anything I was passionate about writing. I was simply passionate about putting a roof over my kids’ heads, and he didn’t ask another question.

Two months later, I had no choice but to bring my newborn daughter into a meeting with John and another content manager at The Reader. Rather than sighing at the utter unprofessionalism of it all, the two took turns holding, dancing with, and cooing at my beautiful little girl while I took notes and studied spreadsheets.

Since then, I have never had to seek work. The name and reputation I built working with The Reader has left me with potential clients seeking me out month after month. That sweet little girl is six and a half now, and this work lets me sit right next to her, writing while she paints her tiny fingernails at an adjoining desk that I built for her.

As an autistic person with OCD, I never experienced a time I felt I was somewhere I was supposed to be. I spend a lot of my

time re-examining my surroundings and trying my very best not to be perceived. But working with and for The Reader has made me loud about the things that matter to me. I have become fiercely protective of Omaha’s creators.

I’ve answered texts and snapchats from restaurant owners and chefs at 2 a.m. who want help re-wording a response to an angry customer or a difficult vendor. I have shown up at a kitchen at 4 a.m. to help bale water when a burst pipe flooded a local establishment. I’ve put nonprofits in contact with food rescues and donations from restaurants because this paper gave me the network to make those connections happen.

Writing for The Reader made me finally feel like a citizen of the city where I was born. To take the one small resource I had and use it to amplify the voices of others who deserve to be heard. And as much as I’ve lost sleep to make a story happen, being part of this story has made the life I live richer, and I will forever be indebted to John Heaston, and to the readers and eaters of Omaha. Thank you so much for sharing these last eight years with me. It has truly been an honor.

— Sara Locke, dining critic

A Second Chance at Life I left the Douglas County Courthouse and headed down Farnam to the bus stop in front of the 7/11 on 16th Street. My destination: The Stephens Center, a homeless shelter on Q Street in South O that doubled as a drug and alcohol rehab. I had just been sentenced to probation, a fine and community service for attempting to shoplift a bottle of cheap vodka in a blackout. It was the third time I had faced the court for that same offense in two months.

It was the middle of November 1995, and I was at a low point in my life. I was homeless, jobless and two years removed from my chosen field: newspaper journalism. I had been an award-winning journalist at The Kansas City Star, Newsday, the New York Daily

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News and the Omaha World-Herald. But at this time, it seemed, I had no prospects for the future.

After all, I had been living on the streets, eating out of dumpsters and in and out of jail. All because of substance abuse.

As I neared the bus stop, I walked by the offices of The Reader. I had been reading the paper for some time while working at Mayfair Textiles in the Old Market for $4.25 an hour. Then, like a bolt of lightning, it struck me: It’s time to start getting my career back. I walked into the paper’s offices and asked to see the editor. That’s how I met John Heaston. I told him I needed a job, detailing my work experience. I also told him I was living in a treatment center and hadn’t worked as a journalist in two years.

John hired me on the spot as a freelance writer. That was, as the saying goes, the first day of the rest of my life. I was 45 days sober and I had a job back in my field. I caught the bus back to the Stephens Center, but I could have floated back.

I wrote my first story for John with a pencil and legal pad while sitting on my bunk in rehab. I moved on to writing cover stories for the next few months, then graduated from the Stephens Center’s treatment program and entered a halfway house. That’s when John called and asked me to be managing editor of The Reader. I jumped at the chance.

I was there when The Reader went weekly, a chaotic but exciting time. We’d pull all-night sessions readying pages for the printer. Sometimes I’d catch a catnap on the couch in the office, then get back to editing copy. A few times I even helped deliver the papers to bars and restaurants around town.

Thanks to John and the Stephens Center, I rebuilt my life, my relationships and my career.

So, after a year at The Reader, I headed for a job at the Oakland Tribune in December 1996. Over the next 22 years, I held supervisory or managerial positions at the San Francisco Examiner, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sacramento Bee, Stars and Stripes in D.C. and the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

I found myself in Fargo, North Dakota, in 2018, working as an associate producer for an NBC-affiliated TV station. I had moved to the tundra to help care for my father, who was in poor health. I had left the station’s studio one August day and was unlocking my bike for the ride home when my phone rang. It was John, asking me to come back as copy chief, working remotely. How could I say no? I locked up my bike, walked back into the TV station and gave my notice. It was a no-brainer.

I filled that role until Dad died in March 2019, then told John I needed time to grieve, left The Reader and moved back to Memphis. In the spring of 2021, John called and asked me to come back as newsletter editor, again working remotely. I jumped at the chance once more. Before too long, I was copy chief again and then production editor, my position for this last edition of The Reader.

I would follow John again if the opportunity presented itself.

This is why: John helped save my life, giving me support, encouragement and a job when I needed them most. I have no idea where I’d be if John hadn’t hired me on the spot in 1995. I mean, who hires a homeless person in treatment who comes in off the street?

John. That’s who. And because of his compassion, care and love, I’m in my 28th year of sobriety. Thank you, John. And God bless you.

— Michael “Spike” Newgren, production editor

Getting the Story Right Before Getting It First When I turned 24 I thought — as probably all 24 year olds do — that my life was going nowhere.

It was November 2019 and I’d spent the last few years working a restaurant job I hated. I was in a band that was losing steam. Rent was getting harder to pay and my mom’s pleas to “just get a job at a bank” were becoming harder to ignore.

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Congratulations to The Reader on its 29-year legacy as a treasured publication.

SEPTEMBER 2023

I’d accomplished a lot with journalism in college, winning awards and filling my resumes with internships. But jobs didn’t materialize.

I was working my restaurant job when an editor of a certain Omaha daily newspaper came in.

I asked why she or her colleagues hadn’t called me back. “Just email me again,” she said. “Sorry, it’s been busy.”

I did, and never heard back.

I was getting close to giving up on a career in journalism (yes, I was very dramatic) when I emailed Reader Publisher-Editor John Heaston on Nov. 27, asking to freelance. We met at Archetype in Blackstone for about an hour.

Before I knew it, I had a job as a part-time investigative reporter.

Eventually the pandemic came, we beefed up our news reporting, hired more people, won awards and hopefully made a difference.

But I like thinking about my first memory of John because it shows what kind of paper The Reader was.

It could be chaotic working there. At times you felt stretched thin. But we always had time to give people a chance. We were more plugged in to the community than any news organization in town because getting the story right always came before getting it first.

I always tell people you can learn how to write, interview and request public records. Journalism school is great, but not always necessary. What you can’t learn is how to care about people. Caring enough to spend countless hours writing and editing late into the night. Genuinely listening to your sources and allowing their experiences to challenge your biases.

Building relationships even if they don’t turn into a story. And giving back the gifts you’ve been lucky to receive.

That doesn’t mean we were perfect. I messed up a lot and had to tell more than one person, “Sorry, we just don’t have time for that story.” But when I reflect on the three-plus years I spent at The Reader, I couldn’t have asked for a better job. I grew. I watched several younger writers go from little experience to flourishing. And I

built friendships in the community that I treasure.

So to everyone I’ve emailed, called, interviewed, hounded, chased down, written about, met, mentored, pleased or annoyed, I want to say thank you. This work meant nothing without you.

— Chris Bowling, investigative reporter and news editor

May It Live On The Reader has been an institution in Omaha.

When I first moved to the city in 2006, I discovered the cultural scene of my new home in its pages, as many others had in its nearly 30 years on stands. It revealed the city’s color and character that was easy to miss if you weren’t looking in the right places.

I wrote a few stories for The Reader in my early Omaha years, but it was when I took over as news director at KVNO in 2010 that I first really teamed up with John Heaston. With our small team at the station, we recorded twoways with Reader reporters talking about their latest stories, and The Reader printed our news stories.

The paper also printed coverage of the Nebraska Legislature from Nebraska Public Media, which at that time was NET and another KVNO partner. We also hosted Joe Jordan, former KMTV reporter and one-man band at Nebraska Watchdog, and aired audio stories from Hear Nebraska, which is now Rabble Mill.

It was an early collaboration, in the non-competitive spirit of journalistic coverage that Flatwater Free Press embodies today.

But it was unusual at the time.

The Reader was an indispensable partner, and Heaston was always game. Collaboration made more sense for the community we were covering, giving us freer rein as journalists to dive in and provide our city in-depth coverage of news that wasn’t being covered and giving voice to communities that weren’t being served. So The Reader was in. Because that’s always what drove the paper: What’s best for the community

F A R E W E L L , we’re covering and how best can we be of service? One of my favorite collaborations was on the long process of lead cleanup in the city and how lead paint was likely causing more problems than lead soil, but the EPA was funding only soil remediation. It was the kind of story that needed teamwork and time, and those are elements both newsrooms believed in.

Three years ago I came back to The Reader to work with the news team as editor. I had the privilege of working with the paper through some of its finest journalistic years. When Heaston brought Chris Bowling on board in 2020, the paper’s news coverage was elevated by Chris’ talent and passion for telling a good story and serving his community. Other stars, including Bridget Fogarty and Leah Cates, also joined the news team, and together we published pieces about undercovered issues and underserved communities — stories such as: • Leah’s piece on the discrimination trans kids faced in Nebraska long before anti-LGBT legislation in the Unicameral generated broader coverage.

• Bridget’s series on the challenges of public education in the city, which she had to fight to cover over an obstructionist OPS. • Chris’ series about the crisis in affordable housing and the way Nebraska’s prison system acts as a stopgap for the state’s mental health needs.

I’m proud of being a part of The Reader and its long history with this city. It has been an invaluable public service, providing a platform for journalists and writers who care about their communities and giving a voice to those who would not otherwise be heard.

I will miss this paper. I’m so grateful to John Heaston and all of the writers and journalists who have devoted thousands of hours to it, driven always by passion over profit. I hope the baton is picked up. May the institution live on.

— Robyn Murray, news editor

See You on the Dance Floor “John will never shut The Reader down.”

I was telling a newer colleague that less than a month before the announcement of the closing of The Reader and El Perico.

So it was a gut punch to get the news. The Reader has been part of my life for almost all of its history. I started as a contributor in 1995 or ’96, so it’s been a long association that has provided me a lot of opportunities. And The Reader’s contributing writers, particularly the core group that has been working with the paper for years, are a community I have always valued being a part of. Being the “Blues Girl” for The Reader, as John Heaston has for years called me with the utmost respect, has been an honor and has become part of my identity. Even though we are rarely in the same physical space, I’ve valued being part of this community of writers and I’ve valued the opportunity to put my love of music into words that people seem to value.

I’m gonna miss this place, metaphorical though it may be.

The Reader has been through many changes and many challenges, and most of those are John’s story to tell, not mine. Some folks think we ceased to exist in 2015, when we went from a weekly paper to a monthly paper with updated content online. But thankfully that change in direction allowed The Reader and El Perico to keep serving their communities while other similar papers went out of business.

John Heaston has managed the changes the paper has faced and the changes in the marketplace with thought and grace. He’s always been committed to alternative journalism, even when news stories were hard or unpopular.

He never backed down from an important story.

He also understood the value of community and the arts. He championed the early Earth Day celebrations. He helped start the Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards with a vision for how the

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different artistic disciplines could come together to celebrate one another, support one another and collaborate. He often gave advertising space to nonprofits and fundraisers. He always kept in mind a thoughtful consideration for the community we served and also gave thought to what any changes meant for the team.

And he’s managed his recent health challenge battling leukemia, mostly quietly, with strength and grace and with the support of his partner Lori, his family, his Reader family, his community and his caregivers. I’m grateful he’s decided to prioritize his health.

Running two papers can be a workaholic rodeo that would not contribute to his wellness.

So, I thank John for giving me the creative freedom to write what I thought needed writing throughout the years. That in itself is a luxury that many music journalists and entertainment writers do not have. I didn’t get assignments doled out. I got to think for myself and write about what I thought mattered. I also thank all the editors, office managers and project managers through the years. There are too many to mention and I don’t want to leave someone out. They are the people who helped John keep the largely freelance writing staff tracking forward, creating great content and meeting deadlines. First week in and week out, and then month after month, we created great content on a shoestring, engaging or celebrating our community. And for nearly 30 years all together.

I hoped someone or some entity that understands the value of local, independent journalism, particularly the music and arts coverage The Reader delivered all those years, would step forward.

That someone would find a way to partner with John to make the resources available to hire the necessary staff so John could step back and the paper could keep operating. But it seems that’s not to be.

Thank you to the core team of writers that was part of the central Reader family through the years.

Thanks to John for everything.

If you’ve been reading my writing for all or some of those years, thank you. I hope I’ve

helped you enrich your life with new musical discoveries and with the joy of music, particularly live music. That’s where it’s at for me – that truly magical energy exchange between musicians onstage and an audience engaging in the performance. The energy vibe that’s created, shared and magnified is unbeatable. Live music creates magic that elevates life to a new level.

Remember that. Maybe I’ll see you on the dance floor somewhere.

— B.J. Huchtemann, Hoodoo column Photo: Chip Druden

Karaoke – a Weird, Wonderful Part of the Job I had sung karaoke many times before working at The Reader and El Perico. But when I took the job in June 2021, I didn’t know the activity would become a recurring theme in my work life.

We sang at a karaoke bar we stumbled upon on our trip to Boston for the Association of Alternative Newsmedia conference, and in a room at Renos in Blackstone after our holiday party in March. But our post-production karaoke hour in the office, located in a former fat-rendering plant of the South Omaha packing houses, is what made the whole karaoke thing stand out as both a weird and wonderful part of this job.

After sending the paper to print at the end of the workday, someone (Lynn Sanchez) would bring a karaoke machine in from the car and plug it into the meeting room’s TV. Two to six of us would sit around eating Aldi snacks and take turns belting mostly Abba, The Doobie Brothers, Lady Gaga and Selena before someone would call it and we’d go home for the weekend (or, on rare occasions, continue the party with tacos at Taqueria Tijuana or Howard’s).

This has been my experience of being a part of The Reader and

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F A R E W E L L , El Perico. It’s a team that worked hard and celebrated with one another. It was a special place to work with people who cared as much about one another as they did about the communities they covered and the papers they produced.

Thank you, John, Karlha Velásquez, Chris Bowling and Lynn Sanchez for hiring me two years ago and giving me the chance to report in service to our communities. Thank you, Robyn Murray, for being a wonderful editor and mentor, and thank you, Tylonda, for being a kind and welcoming friend in and out of the office.

I’m amazed by and grateful to everyone who dedicated time and talents to the paper, online news sites and agency, including Jason, Ken, Spike, Arjav, Leah, Fernando, Angie, Sandra, Albory, Abbie, Paul B. and Buddi3.

I’d never been to Nebraska (and I didn’t have a place to live either) when I drove to Omaha in June 2021 to start my job working

with The Reader and El Perico. It’s been a massive privilege in my job to learn about the city I live in. I feel indebted to the residents who embraced me and extended the trust, patience and time that helped us report better about the joys and challenges facing North and South Omaha communities.

Long conversations with people like Linda and José García, Marina Rosado, Bernardo Montoya, Leah Schneider Moreno, Susan and Salvador Robles, Kimara Snipes, Martín Salazar, Luís Marcos, Perla Ochoa, Roxana CortésMills, Gabriela Pedroza and so many staff members at the Latino Center of the Midlands led to connections that helped us better report for South Omaha and the city’s Spanish-speaking, Latino/ Latina/Latin and indigenous Maya communities.

I can echo only what so many in this last edition are saying: It’s been a privilege to be a part of these papers’ legacies in Omaha, I’m proud of our work, and I’m

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sorry to see El Perico and The Reader go as free resources for our communities. I hope funders step up to support community-based media like The Omaha Star, 1st Sky Omaha and Mundo Latino that have long been doing this work. And I hope we all support Black and Latin-led media that continue to emerge to fill gaps and report trusting news North and South Omahans deserve.

I hope local and state newsrooms continue creating more accessible opportunities for young journalists to learn and gain mentorship. The high school students in Omaha (including the newspaper students I worked with at Omaha South High), Omaha Documenters, the interns who have worked in our newsroom have shown me the next generation of journalists in Omaha are intelligent reporters deserving of opportunities to grow and do work they care about.

Thank you for reading and supporting us. I’ve loved living in Omaha more than I can say, and I’ve loved working for two papers I can pick up for free and see stories celebrating the great people who make the city what it is. And I’ve loved singing karaoke, too. Research shows group singing is beneficial for our moods, stress levels and immune systems, according to Harvard Health Publishing. That sounds like just the activity a group of reporters and creatives at an almost 30-year-old community alternative newspaper needed.

— Bridget Fogarty, Report for America Corps member

Not to Bury but to Praise When John Heaston, The Reader’s publisher/owner, asked me to be his contributing visual arts editor a dozen or more years ago, he did me a big favor as well as an honor.

He did a bigger favor by continuing a commitment to the Metro’s fine arts coverage, a staple of The Reader’s mission for more than 30 years. Whether either one of us continues in a similar role remains

to be seen after this, the last issue of The Reader as we know it.

But, friends, readers and countrymen, to paraphrase Shakespeare, we don’t come today to bury The Reader, but to praise it, at least to acknowledge it, not only for what it has been, but what we will miss when it’s gone. At least, I can do so from our purview, that of covering a visual arts scene that continues to get short shrift in the media, especially when compared with sports, popular entertainment, fine and fast-food dining. There are reasons for that and damn few solutions, but that’s not on the menu. What did The Reader bring to the table and who was responsible? Who do we say goodbye to, maybe forever?

My job, which I will sorely miss, was made possible, challenging and worthwhile because of artists, curators and gallerists, and above all, The Reader’s staff and arts writers of whom I’ll say more. As for artists, yes, I had my favorites, many whose work hangs salon-style in our home, many more who moved me and shaped my writing. I won’t embarrass them all with full disclosure, but their names are, in no particular order: Susan, Sarah, Joe, Larry, Jim, Terry, Claudia, Mike, Iggy, John, Bill, Vera, Christian, James, Kim, Freddy, Shawnequa, Watie, Frauke, Fulvio, Therman, Humberto, Catherine, Kristin, Christina, Craig, Renee, Tate, Bart, Barb, Ellie, Tim, Monte, Julie, Jamie, Josh, Skylar, Sora, Joey, Wanda, Jay, Mark, Troy, Travis, Nolan, Brian, Paula. A mixed palette to be sure, and no doubt a sin or two of omission as I’ve written about many more artists of all kinds and talent near and abroad. It was a pleasure to spend time with each of them and their work, often more than once.

Several of the above are also gallerists and curators, some of the hardest-working, risk-taking people of service and caregivers in their own right. Despite memorable pop-ups and DIYs the past dozen years, artists would not have shown or prospered without the following who also helped and enlightened me along the way: Mark Masuoka, Jeremy Stern and Hesse McGraw, Doug Dushan, Larry and Logan Roots, Jess Benjamin, Joel Damon, Rob

F A R E W E L L , Gilmer, Brigitte McQueen, John Rogers, Patrick Drickey, Vera and Mark Mercer, Christian Rothmann and Matthias Harder, Humberto Chavez Mayol, Kyle Laidig, Shane and Shawn Bainbridge, Tom and Jean Sitzman, Alex Jochim, Teresa Gleason and Ang Bennett.

In addition, Metro artists — and writers — have been aided and abetted by other venue owners and staffers, including Amy Rummel, Peter Fankhauser, Patrick Mainelli, Davina Schrier, Sara Bihlmaier and Launa Bacon. After all, exhibits are not created in a vacuum, and the best that I saw and reviewed were larger than the sum of their parts.

I would be remiss not to thank those Reader staffers behind the scenes who not only managed, polished, proofed, designed, teched, published and uploaded The Reader, but kept me from being a total luddite. I learned a lot and enjoyed micromanaging our contribution online. Besides Captain John, I am grateful to Eric Stoakes, Lynn Sanchez, Chris Bowling, Michael “Spike” Newgren, Jason Fisher, Sarah Wengert, Joanna LeFlore, Ken Guthrie, Paul Clark and many others. I hope you all land on your feet.

Most of all I must acknowledge the past arts writers who not only wrote for The Reader and me, but you the readers: Janet L. Farber, Kent Behrens, Jonathan Orozco, Eddith Buis, Joel Damon, Mary Day, Carol Dennison, Sally Deskins, Jeff King, David Thompson, Melinda Kozel, Laura Vranes, Gerard Pefung, Alex Priest, David Williams, Hugo Zamorano and Adam Price. Only a few had any journalism background, so I particularly enjoyed tutoring them, always grateful for a managing editor’s eye before publication.

Whether a preview, review or feature, our goal was to bring readers and Metro art together.

We did our best to make it about the work more than the artist.

Therefore, no puff pieces and no promotion — we wrote for The Reader and you. If our writing was not as critical as some may have liked, it was analytical first and foremost. Whenever judgmental or opinionated, we made sure to Tell and Show, and only after spending considerable time with the art, letting it speak for itself

instead of relying only on an artist or show statement. Most of all, we stayed out of our stories, seldom, if ever, using first person, or making it about ourselves. We were never the show.

But we did enjoy the show in too many venues to mention.

And we enjoyed serving you and Metro arts. I hope that showed. As the curtain closes on The Reader, all that’s left for Maestro Heaston & Co. is to take a final bow. I read that, as one door closes, another opens. Who? What? Where?

When? We know the “Why?” The question is, “How?” — Mike Krainak, Visual Arts editor

The Spark That Started a Movement The Reader has always been a part of my life in many ways. I was encouraged by founder John Heaston to begin writing a local music column around 1999 for the then-weekly paper. I had no formal writing experience or education and had been writing an unedited column on the local music website S.L.A.M. Omaha. I was managing Homer’s Music, working in a few venues, managing bands, and promoting some national and regional shows. I was probably the right person for the gig, and Heaston recognized that.

Somehow that turned into writing a column for various publications for the next 15 years, ending up at The Reader after a break.

There was a time in the early 2000s when a lot of the players in the Omaha music scene were on the same page. We used to have “music lunches,” which I believe were put together by Heaston and The Reader and others. If not, he was a huge presence at these lunches. Radio stations, record stores, weeklies, promoters, and musicians would show up at Sam & Louies on Cass Street to come up with ideas, network, put together promotions, and so much more. So many ideas for columns came out of these lunches, and

O M A H A

it seems like such a foreign idea now.

Even though I was writing for a competing weekly at the time, Heaston and The Reader brought me into The Omaha Entertainment & Arts Awards during its initial years. I would continue on for a decade, chairing the music portion of the awards and hosting many multiple venue showcases.

This was a big part of my life, and once again, Heaston recognized that I was the right person and encouraged me to step up. Heaston and The Reader sponsored a lot of music events over the years.

Sometimes they were involved, and sometimes it was their idea.

Heaston and those involved with The Reader had a big role in the flow of the Omaha music scene, and at times it would not have looked like it did without them.

I was also a fan. I used to get excited about a new issue of The Reader and would snatch it up, head to the 49’r, and read it front to back. It was so much fun to see people I knew featured and to find out about new movies, food, and shops. There was humor that I enjoyed, and then there was the calendar. The internet existed, and there were places to find out about shows, but my week started with sitting down with a pen and that calendar, mapping out what I was going to see that week. The Reader was a ritual for me.

There were so many personalities that, while friends and acquaintances, came even more alive on those pages and in the columns. Jim Minge, Tim McMahan, B.J. Huchtemann, and more. They were larger-than-life voices of influence that musicians would wish a mention from.

There was a time when being a music journalist carried a lot of weight. We all had our favorites and our not-so-favorites. We talked about them as much as our favorite bands. “T-Mac will never write about you; you are not indie enough.” “How many times is Minge going to mention Ben Lee?” I very much respected The Reader for going more in a journalistic and investigative direction, because as a reader that is of value to me now. I have seen this new direction influence others to start grassroots journalistic endeavors,

and a slew of young journalists are on a journey to bring the public its most-needed commodity.

Honest journalism. While my memories and nostalgia come from the culture magazine that was a lengthy part of our lives, I believe the loss for our community is the loss of an outlet for that journalism. Down the road we will look back on The Reader’s final direction as the spark that started a movement locally, and for all the bands, theater performances, and cupcake shops The Reader helped promote over the years, that spark will be its legacy.

— MarQ Manner, Backbeat column

The Reader Helped Shape My Writer’s Identity Every writer confronts at least one identity crisis in their career.

My first big one involved leaving the comfort of healthcare, education, insurance, business writing to stretch myself as a culture writer for The Reader.

The Reader didn’t recruit me. I came to the paper as an unknown, unsolicited quantity. Since the publication had no familiarly with me or my work, it meant I had no inside track, much less the benefit of a referral or recommendation.

I admired the quality of writing as well as the spirited, alternative takes on subjects the mainstream media ignored or didn’t get. In making a cold call to the editorial staff about my interest, I bet on myself that I had something of value to contribute. I effectively said I have what it takes to join your stable of writers. That I belong. The risk came in potentially being snubbed or rejected or not measuring up, which fortunately didn’t happen, because an ego is easily bruised, at least mine was at that time.

I don’t recall exactly how it played out, whether I talked my way into being given a shot or I provided samples of my work that spoke for me, but I do know the editors took a flyer on me by

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F A R E W E L L , offering a couple of assignments.

I remember being both elated and stressed by the opportunity – the be-careful-what-you-ask-for game we play with ourselves – but fortunately I was prepared to deliver the goods. If not my first contribution, then two of the first were a cover story profile on the late Bertha Calloway, founder-director of the Great Plains Black History Museum, and a feature on the Downtown Boxing Club’s resident cast of characters.

the ability, interest and freedom to write across the breadth of The Reader’s editorial content. Thus in any given issue you could find my byline in one or a combination of sections — food/dining, theater, film/television/media, art, music, literature, sports, news. When not writing about arts, entertainment culture, I was writing about community and social justice issues, events, efforts, organizations and activists. I even wrote some historical pieces.

All these years later I am not sure if I pitched those stories or if the editors sized me up and assigned them, thinking we made a good fit. In any event, the powers that be trusted and encouraged me to run with those stories in a literary journalistic style. And I did.

I became the paper’s go-to cover-story author, penning 350 or so cover stories, or roughly one-third, in my heyday from 1996 through about 2018.

Additionally, I wrote 600 to 800 features. There were a number of issues in which I had two, three, even four stories in the paper.

Those projects set the stage for a 28-year journey with the paper, entirely as a contributing writer.

I never had a column or a beat because as a general culture writer with a wide-angle lens on life I had

I also enjoyed a significant role with The Reader’s companion publication, El Perico, filing perhaps 200 stories for it.

DECEMBER 16th, 2023 Save the date. We are throwing a party to celebrate The Reader & El Perico, and to roast those responsible for them! There will be live music. Band/Venue/Time TBD. Check the web.

Free for members, contributors, educators, and health professionals.

Everyone else—you got 30 years of coverage, pay what you can.

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SEPTEMBER 2023

O M A H A

That’s an unusually strong presence for a freelance contributing writer with a single media entity. The fact I made that level of contribution over parts of four decades is even more unusual.

It felt good helping build The Reader brand by landing exclusive interviews and delivering exclusive stories no other Omaha media had, such as my work covering filmmaker Alexander Payne. When I wasn’t breaking stories, I was exploring them with a depth, nuance or context no one else brought to these subjects, including the many pieces I filed on African American subjects.

The inclusivity of The Reader afforded certain opportunities none of my other media clients did, particularly its embrace of the Black story subjects I brought it.

The paper’s progressive, issues-oriented approach also allowed me to tackle complex community-based subjects other clients preferred avoiding.

A decade and a half before the Omaha World-Herald’s “24th and Glory” series, I covered similar territory in The Reader with my Black Sports Legends series “Out to Win: The Roots of Greatness.”

The paper let me write extended (3,000 to 5,000 word) pieces on everyone from authors, actors, musicians and athletes to Holocaust survivors and alleged alien abductees and on everything from Native Omaha Days to the College World Series to the Omaha Stockyards.

Publisher-Editor John Heaston funded assignments that took me outside Nebraska, including three trips to California to cover Payne. I also joined a group of Nebraskans who ventured to President Barack Obama’s first inauguration. Other assignments took me on a tour of Midwest baseball touchstones and to Africa in the company of world boxing champion Terence Crawford. I also embedded myself in a prairie writing colony.

As The Reader morphed in this evermore fluid media landscape, my opportunities diminished, especially when it went from a weekly to a monthly. I didn’t always agree with how it adapted, but I am forever grateful it helped me find my writer’s voice, style and identity. I am proud of the work I did and of the role I played

in helping to make The Reader, well, The Reader.

— Leo Adam Biga, correspondent

A City Left Without Important Voices It’s a hackneyed expression: A picture is worth a thousand words. True enough, but for me the reverse is also accurate: A thousand words (even a hundred) can paint a picture. And that has been my experience and my reward in writing these many years for The Reader.

When art and art history first piqued my interest in college, I had no frame of reference for it.

Instead, I found that those making modern and contemporary art were engaged in exciting and challenging forms of expression that disrupted the familiar. I became enamored with objets d’art, the methods and inspirations of their making, the contexts that underlay them as well as the importance of the direct visual experience. My career has been in curatorial work, first at Joslyn Art Museum and then for the Phillip Schrager Collection of Contemporary Art, and my pleasure has been to help visitors find their own connections.

In particular, I found that writing a bit about artworks could provide an important entry point into something otherwise unfamiliar. If I could crack the door open, to link the object to the eye of the beholder. I was helping to break barriers, providing at least one possible access to the often-mystifying world of art. I was also passing on the same aid provided to me by artists, teachers and writers past and present.

Writing for The Reader has been a meaningful extension of my public-facing “institutional” work, and it allowed fellow writers and myself to shine a light on some of the wide-ranging offerings within the Metro arts community. The Reader recognized that every art scene benefits from

F A R E W E L L , voices outside of the studio to add perspective and context. It helps confer a kind of legitimacy to the efforts of artists, the choices made by venues, and helps identify the contours of the local art scene.

Disinterested in providing personality-driven features, The Reader provided a necessary forum in which to be insightful and critical.

pop-ups, fusion fare, and menus without dollar signs or decimals.

This gig was not always easy.

Not every venue provides timely information and not every show lives up to its promise. Getting information on a deadline from artists and organizations can be a bit like herding cats — just ask those receiving my pleading emails twice a year for the seasonal arts previews. It is not always gratifying — once it’s out in the ether, I don’t know how or if it is being received. But it’s a labor of love that has taken me places and introduced me to people I have been privileged to know.

My special thanks, however, is reserved for Arts Editor Mike Krainak, for inviting me into his bullpen, pitching challenging opportunities to write, make improvements, and write some more – always with generous mentoring and edits – and who put up with my annoying addiction to Oxford’s incessant comma and my clockwork, regular solicitations for “one more day.”

In a world surrounded by social-media-driven visual culture, coupled with a shrinking environment for verbal content in its regard, I am saddened by the departure of The Reader from the Omaha publishing scene. We are left without voices to promote, decipher and uplift the important happenings in the local visual arts community. I thank John Heaston and The Reader for hanging in there, a stalwart for so many years in a shifting publishing landscape, ever trying to reinvent a sustainable business model so that the important work of community journalism could continue.

— Janet L. Farber, Arts reporter

An Alternative Void Has Appeared Well, that hole is back again.

That perennial gap that pleads to be filled with some alternative to the established and predictable local news and information options, that begs for a hub to corral the variety of arts and entertainment the metro area has to offer, that seeks explanation for the mysterious goings-on in the world of local distilleries,

A heartfelt thank you to Big Cheese John Heaston for manning the helm, and sincere appreciation and best wishes to all the writers, editors and support staff who had a part in making this long-running alternative a success, and for letting me to be a part of it.

Of course, honorable mention must go to fellow Arts writer Janet L. Farber, my go-to when Grammarly or Word-bot failed, or I just couldn’t raze the writer’s block.

I am optimistic and confident that someone or some group will take The Reader into its next chapter, or fill the void with something new, because Omaha is deserving of alternatives of this quality.

— Kent Behrens, Arts reporter

Launched Into the Stratosphere The Reader and El Perico entertained, informed, and inspired just about three decades of English and Spanish readers throughout the Omaha Metro and Lincoln — two blue dots in a sea of dark red.

The papers did more than help us pass the time, but they did that, too. The two outlets shared a unique capacity to entertain, matched only by the reach of their fearless journalistic integrity that few other publications could strive for.

The closure of The Reader/El Perico is an immeasurable loss, like waking up one morning to find the ocean is missing.

But closure, in this instance, comes as a sigh of relief for our kind leader, John Heaston, who,

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for health reasons, is stepping down from running the papers to focus on his recovery. Godspeed, John! We send you infinite love and gratitude. We honor what you and your friends started growing back in February 1994.

Me? I was created six months later. When I turned 25, The Reader became my unlikely starting point, barreling down a new career path. You might call my discovery a moment of clarity during a quarter-life crisis.

For one, my band Midwest Depressed had broken up. For two, everything started changing around me, but I felt like I was standing still. I moved four times during the summer of 2019. Up, down, and across Omaha, from Midtown to Millard, to Midtown again and again, until finally scaling the Gotham-like towers of Downtown.

During this arduous journey, traveling with no car in our very un-walkable city, I discovered The Reader — for no real reason except for my own existentialism.

I looked from the cracked sidewalks to the starlight that poked through the sky, kicking rocks in the July darkness during one random, late-night pedestrian’s encounter with the universe. There it was, a stack of free newspapers sitting on the news rack, which hadn’t been picked over.

I took two issues home to a 360-square-foot apartment I shared that had no extra rooms except for a bathroom, and damn sure no furniture. I was sitting on the floor, but I might as well have launched into the stratosphere. I inhaled every word.

The elaborate tapestry of sections on politics, events, art showcases, movies and, of course, local and national music, gripped me immediately with its genuine depth — its pure ambition. The writing seemed to speak to me through the pages.

Nothing else championed Omaha like this.

Something clicked inside my wheeling, jobless mind. For the next six months, I read everything I could get my hands on. I wrote as if my life depended on it.

Looking back, I am sure that it did.

Writing got me out of a depressive loop and gave me something

much more tangible than hope, even if the words went nowhere.

So, I took the ice-cold plunge into freelance writing with an almost arrogant fearlessness. It was mere months before COVID-19 hit.

At the time, I lived in poverty with no internet. I borrowed Wi-Fi from the neighbors, sitting in a stairwell of our apartment building to deliver my writing projects.

I wrote alongside music and news blaring from a bulky RCA radio/ speaker combo, repping our local NPR affiliate KIOS. I wrote for pennies and “donated” as much plasma as the centers would let me.

I could not stop writing — prose, poetry, and music — day or night.

After I had sharpened my writing tools in a building that began to collect more and more bullet holes, I applied to The Reader toward the end of 2020.

After first not quite making the cut, a few months later, I was in. It became my first stable freelance writing job.

Almost three years later, my experience writing for The Reader is not unique. It mirrors 30 years of experience shared by creatives in this town, people who have stayed or left — many of whom worked for The Reader/El Perico, and all of whom have read issues with regular affection after the excitement of first contact.

Today, inspiration washes over me. The outpouring of support in the wake of this monumental closure leaves me feeling thankful to be one of many flashbulbs in a sea of stars.

And yes, processing the end of an era is strange. I am smiling because it happened, humming because the memory of our song will stick with us long after the music is over, and feeling brighter because the impact of this enlightening, ephemeral experience will ripple on long after we are all gone.

The Reader/El Perico gave us all a chance and met us where we were. The lives of freelancers changed, just as the lives of the reading audience changed in their own way with every issue.

We are all better for it.

— Matt Casas, reporter

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Family Empowerment Program

Healing & Hope for Survivors of Domestic Violence

childsaving.org/empowerment 26

SEPTEMBER 2023

Farewell, Omaha

Blasts From The Reader’s Past It Takes a Village to Write a Story At the first Reader editorial board meeting I attended –– as an intern, in November 2020, months after graduating college –– I pitched two stories, and the team assigned me both. Not because they were great pitches (in hindsight, one wasn’t particularly original, and the other was overly ambitious for a 22-year-old on her first day of her first bona fide job out of college), but because The Reader staff was an open-minded bunch willing to take risks and eager to mentor nascent journalists.

In the ensuing months, I learned that it takes a village to write a story, or at least the kind that was the hallmark of Reader journalism: A gripping narrative that delves into root causes of and solutions for inequities that intimately affect Omahans and Nebraskans –– who, the staff taught me, are the heart and soul of the village it takes to make a story.

Community members spent hours sharing their lived experiences with generosity and candor, or graciously offering their expertise to help us contextualize the stories we were seeking to tell, and they thoughtfully responded to months of nosy follow-up emails, texts and phone calls.

The other part of the village is the Reader staff. They’re the people to whom you sent your celebratory “got the interview!!” texts (or called when you didn’t). They helped cut hundreds of words from your story the Saturday before deadline day, teaching you to convert page upon page of messy data from your public records request into organized spreadsheets (even when it was getting late and they still had plenty of their own data to sift through). They even masked up and took photos for your story in the thick of a pandemic.

They did it because they cared.

About an engaging narrative. About Omaha, about Nebraska. About the community members with whom

they developed enduring bonds as they worked alongside them to tell their stories. About one another.

About the stray kittens they found outside the office and adopted.

(True story.)

I watched them pile papers into their cars and drive them all over Omaha when the usual delivery system broke down. They answered late-night emergency phone calls from community members they interviewed and guided them to crisis resources. They spent weekends repainting the office or helping with a team member’s yard work, and they dropped off homemade meals when a team member caught COVID. (Personal note: My Reader tenure was smack-dab in the middle of the pandemic when I was living in my childhood bedroom and figuring out what to do with my life. That sounds kind of miserable, but it was a fun and formative period because of The Reader.)

Some staff didn’t live in Omaha –– we had team members living in places from Ohio to El Salvador to Tennessee –– yet they proofed pages late into the night, then emailed you the next morning to ask how that tough interview went.

Even from thousands of miles away, they cared.

Joining The Reader staff was like joining a cult. (They were nice though, I swear.) There’s an indoctrination ceremony –– weeks into my internship, I found myself dressed head to toe in an El Perico parrot costume for the South Omaha Cinco de Mayo parade –– and then they sucked you in even deeper: My (supposedly) three-month internship became a part-time job, which became a full-time job, which was complete chaos. I composed the morning newsletter, wrote deep dives, ran the membership program, worked on social media strategy with staff members … All par for course at The Reader, where everyone wore many newsboy caps.

Like any cult, once you’re in, you never get out. I’m typing this from 1,240 miles away, in a studio apartment in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where I moved for grad

school, and I’m staring at a drawing of the Reed Moore newsletter logo –– the only thing hanging on my desk –– sketched by a staff member who used it as wrapping paper for the Bright Eyes record they gave me as a going-away gift (the EP “There Is No Beginning to the Story,” for the Omaha indieheads at home).

It’s framed on the wall, as is another going-away gift: A little handmade poster that features photos of every staff member (and, importantly, their cats) and reads, “We will be cheering you on from here!”

My favorite newsroom/village might be halfway across the country, but it’s still very much in my apartment, not to mention my writing –– I open every Google doc armed with wisdom drilled into my brain

by Reader editors and writers. And this might technically be the Reader’s farewell issue, but the Reader’s legacy –– of in-depth reporting that pushes boundaries, seeks to destabilize long-standing inequities, tells a gripping story, and is rooted in compassion –– will no doubt be profound. The village is here to stay.

— Leah Cates

The Rocks on Which the Game Hinged All around town I hear the phrase, “Well, it was a good run.”

How on Earth did I wind up in Omaha, Nebraska, at the time I would be hearing that phrase about The Reader? It’s surreal.

There’s not much I can say about the end of The Reader without sounding sentimental. It is unbelievable in the truest sense of the word. And it’s only now when there is nothing left to say but “Well, it was a good run,” that the realization of the ways The Reader was a part of one’s life, comes crashing like a freight train.

First, Publisher-Editor John Heaston must have heard the same call that I and my partner Buddi3 Da Gawd did around 2016. Something

was happening. We all started realizing that life wasn’t letting us concentrate on art anymore. Life was getting too serious for us not to talk about social change. The Reader, which I had come to rely on for cultural news in Omaha, morphed into the only news magazine in town that was telling the truth about the divided state of our surroundings.

At the same time, Buddi3 and I were full steam with the Mind and Soul Radio program broadcasting from the Malcolm X Memorial Foundation. We knew that if we were going to build a station, it had to be based around a news show. It seemed like the world was stopping the flow of important information and we became activists through journalism. A couple of years after that we were 1st Sky Omaha, and the team Heaston built at The Reader was our family. We were writing articles and helping shape direction, and the paper’s staff was coming on our show and building trust with the community we were nurturing.

When Heaston gave me the call saying done deal, it was a phone frenzy for the next two weeks with panic-stricken partners trying to figure out what we were going to do.

The Reader and El Perico were the rocks on which the game hinged.

Everything that has happened in the last five years in Omaha news, from the pop-ups of the nonprofit journalism models, to 1st Sky Omaha, to NOISE, to the saving of the Omaha Star, to how some in mainstream news pivoted to independent news, to the way El Perico helped bond North and South Omaha, has been because of what the team at The Reader did — behind and in front of the scenes. I am sure many people would say, “Not just the last five years, but the last 30!”

I find myself ramping up like a whirlwind trying to count the ways The Reader affected my life. The synapses fire and the mind speeds with memories. Coming in from California in 2010, I immediately got with The Reader to navigate the city.

As an artist, I used it as my roadmap.

The Reader published the first article I ever wrote. Even in the ’90s, when

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F A R E W E L L , I lived here for a year, a woman I was in love with was a freelance writer for paper. My purple fam Prince buddy wrote music reviews there.

The Reader was the truth. The crew is the fam. And it will be interesting to see what happens next.

John Heaston is my brother, and I am happy that he is prioritizing his health over pushing on with the kind of journalism that is under attack — telling the truth. I know one thing: Just because John is packing up the gear doesn’t mean he’s done playing the game. News gangs don’t die, we multiply.

“It was a good run?” Nope.

We’re still running. RIP, The Reader/ El Perico.

— Paul B. Allen

utive position. I stayed late here and there to make sure my ads were all in for the paper’s printing and delivery every week. One of those late nights, I went upstairs, which was occupied

by The Omaha Lancers, and spoke to a man walking around in a janitor/ jail-style jumpsuit. Although he was calm and quite nice, I was a little taken aback and thought to myself, “IS THIS MAN TO BE TRUSTED? SHOULD I BE CONCERNED? LET SOMEONE KNOW? I was told the next day, "Tracy, that's Alan Baer.

He owns our paper!" Not only our paper, but the Lancers hockey team, Pears Coffee, Herman’s Nuts and Brandeis Catering (great grandson of Brandeis department stores founder). Talk about humbleness! Never judge or underestimate others by their appearance!

— Tracette Wolfe A Path to Bigger Things An Eye-Opening I am sure this Experience

is a phrase that will be repeated numerous times, but this is truly the end of an era. John Heaston welcomed me aboard when my career in journalism was just beginning to blossom. I loved working with him — he was always fun to talk to and very supportive of my ideas. I felt encouraged, inspired and motivated to give The Reader my very best. I will always cherish my time there. My experience there inadvertently got me to Rolling Stone, SPIN Magazine and Thrasher, fulfilling many of my childhood dreams. I will never forget what John did for me. I wish him the best and I'll always be rooting for him.

— Kyle Eustice

Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover I was hired by Cheryl Golden as an intern through UNO. Assisting the classifieds manager. She was overwhelmed and stressed. About a week or so into the position, she was let go and I became her replacement. I loved it. I had never worked in the media industry before, but had support all around from other staff. John Heaston came back as publisher, and he moved me into an account exec-

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What I tried to bring to theater reviewing in Omaha was a fresh perspective, and even a bit bolder assessment of the lesser-known theaters in town, something the local daily would routinely snub or condescend to. In other words, when the daily played it safe, I went out on limbs to show theater's possibilities. From the edgy side of shows like "The Pillowman," which the Bluebarn was to be commended for tackling a disturbing subject, to the Doug and Laura Marr "Diner" series that made us laugh and put a lump in our throat with beautiful pathos, the wealth of theater has always amazed me.

The wonderful nuggets I found while reviewing opened my mind to a town that is rich in theater history, and I still feel not enough people are aware of how lucky we are. Especially when you look at the smaller troops, like Brigit St. Brigit, which is presenting its 31st season, doing classic plays, Shakespeare and more, with all the panache of a group doing the same in New York. Or Shelterbelt and its Halloween shows like "Shelter Skelter." Or SNAP and its edgy LGBT+ shows that were hilarious, sometimes touching and "in the moment." (Very excited to see SNAP is coming back!) The Playhouse's perfect take on the musical "La Cage Aux Folles." And the Bluebarn's take on a modern masterpiece, "Waiting

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O M A H A

for Godot." There are so many more I could mention.

It was an eye-opening experience to write for The Reader. To this day, my "critiquing" mind still kicks in when I see a show, and I owe that to The Reader's insistence on paying attention to details and writing about the essence of the play and if it came across on stage. It was a learning lesson I will never forget.

Thank you, Reader, for 30 years of independent writing and opening people's minds.

— Victor Hahn

The Cool Publication When I was growing up in Omaha in the ’90s, The Reader was the cool publication. In my early 20s, I'd spend my Sundays devouring it at one of the Dundee coffee shops. I remember reading the art reviews, thinking, “Man, it'd be so cool to write for them!”

I had always been working for papers, since Westside High School and in under grad at UNL and graduate school at UNO, but I wasn't a journalism major. I saw an ad for art reviewers and I applied. My first gig was to review a burlesque show downtown. I took it so seriously, and enjoyed every minute. I got more assignments reviewing art shows, and even got to interview former ARTnews Editor Milton Esterow and notable collector Jordan Schnitzer.

I love the process of slowly taking in a show, talking to the artists and making my own connections through writing, then working with editors to make it shine. I remember after one of my first assignments John Heaston said my writing had promise because it was full of content, not fluff. I'll never forget that!

Then I got the gig writing the arts column Mixed Media. I just relished writing that every Saturday night with a glass of wine. Then John got a partnership with public radio station KVNO, and I got to do audio reviews.

This was so exciting.

The confidence from the gig inspired me to formulate my own 10-year stint blogging, Les Femmes Folles, and a series of co-curated exhibits, one of which was nominated for an OEA (curated by Wanda

Ewing, 2012). Having my exhibits reviewed in The Reader was such an honor and a kick. I moved away from Omaha in 2013. This gig was probably my favorite job and I think of my time at The Reader fondly.

Thank you, John, for giving me this awesome opportunity, for always being supportive and creating and continuing this stellar publication for so long.

— Sally Brown (formerly Deskins)

So Long – and Thanks for the Memories I’ve started, deleted and then restarted my thoughts at least a half-dozen times.

How does one sum up memories of The Reader in a few words? It’s impossible.

I was fortunate to be a Reader contributor from 2004 until 2010.

Sports was my beat, but like everyone else, I picked up the occasional album review or local news story.

And let’s be honest, we were paid by the word, so I’d take any assignment that came my way.

Andrew Norman, my college classmate at UNL, hired me, and I was fortunate to work with an incredibly talented team. Reading the paper each week, I was cognizant enough to know I wasn’t even close to the best writer of the bunch, and certainly not the wittiest, but I was proud of the work we produced.

We had a great team that put out an amazing product, and we were damn proud of it.

The memories are too many to count, but a singular moment that I’m most proud of involves our coverage of the College World Series.

Before we all carried iPhones and Androids, The Reader pioneered news coverage at the CWS. We produced the “Daily Dugout.”

We’d reprint stories from hometown papers and sprinkle in our own features, then print and distribute copies at Rosenblatt Stadium each day. In 2023, the concept sounds strange, but 20 years ago it was almost cutting edge.

I’m grateful to have been a small part of the history of The Reader, grateful to John Heaston, grateful

F A R E W E L L , to everyone who picked up the paper and sent me angry emails and grateful for the friends made along the journey.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

— Adam Froemming

A Life-Changing Experience I wrote quite a bit for The Reader in the early years of the millennium.

Book reviews, a few assignments and interviews, a couple of cover stories. It was a big deal for me as I was struggling at the time, having failed out of college a few years earlier. That experience had wiped out what little self-worth I had, and writing for a publication that was available everywhere in my hometown and getting paid for it made me feel like I might be worth at least a little something.

At one point, I was assigned an interview with a publisher working on a new poetry series. Following that interview, the publisher asked

if I would be willing to do another interview, this time with one of the writers in the series because the publisher wanted people to see this particular poet, who was more of a songwriter, in a different light. And that’s how I ended up interviewing Jeff Tweedy for The Writer’s Chronicle, flagship publication of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs.

It was a lucky break, and not just because I was a big Wilco fan. Another big Wilco fan, who also happened to be a professor at the University of Missouri, read that interview with Tweedy and was impressed enough that he pushed for me to get a fellowship in his school’s English Ph.D. program, changing my life profoundly.

After graduating from the University of Missouri, I landed a tenure-track professorship in the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Goodrich Scholarship Program, in which I am a full professor about to begin my 13th year counseling and guiding students through a college experience that once undid me. I am proud of the work, and I love what I do. Thank you, John, for helping

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an insecure kid feel worthwhile. It changed everything for me.

— Todd Richardson

A Time Capsule of Omaha There’s a certain feeling you get when picking up a copy of The Reader. You feel … connected. To the community, to the arts, to what’s happening.

I grew up alongside The Reader.

Being an alternative paper, it always embodied “cool” to me. All the good spots carried it. I liked how I felt reading it in a cozy coffee shop or sidewalk cafe. I enjoyed absorbing its columns, studying the artwork and photos, and making note of the journalists, photographers, and people featured within.

As a writer who wanted nothing more than to write about music as a hobby, I was elated at the opportunity to see my byline on its pages a couple of times, including a cover

story, and it makes me feel so honored to be able to say, “I was there.”

The Reader may be stopping its presses, but the beautiful thing about the written word is that its stories and legacy will always live on, forever a part of a time capsule documenting nearly three decades of Omaha’s history.

Thank you, John, and thank you to all who have contributed to giving us our treasured Reader. You have had such an impact on so many of us.

— Mikala Harden

Something Thrilling As an online content writer, I was looking for a writing community to join locally. This was years ago, probably around 2008 or so. Back then, once publishers found out a writer had online SEO experience, all they wanted was digital work from the employee. But,

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F A R E W E L L , for whatever reason, I craved seeing my byline in a paper.

When I first met publisher John Heaston and asked him if I could join his group of contributing writers for The Reader, he was kind and approachable. And while I did wind up helping with some digital SEO content, he let me start writing some pieces for The Reader. Eventually, he asked if I wanted a contributing editor position, and that’s how I became the Dish editor.

I don’t know if John ever understood how tickled I was to write for print – there’s just something thrilling about seeing my work in a publication. But he let me keep writing and editing – and eventually allowed me to help him find the editor who replaced me when my tenure was up, the lovely and talented Dish editor Sara Locke.

Writing for The Reader helped infuse me into Omaha culture. As someone who grew up in Southern California and has always struggled to understand the mysterious culture that is Midwestern, I owe a lot to John Heaston and The Reader. And while I’ve since moved on to writing for a variety of print publications, The Reader will always have a special place in my heart.

I’m sorry to see you go, The Reader. Thanks for all the fun.

— Tamsen Butler

Participating in a Dream Some of the best years of my life, definitely the most memorable, involved The Reader from the extremely humble begin-

nings of Issue 1 or 2 when we folded and stapled 11 x 16 pieces of paper in John Heaston’s apartment off 38th and Leavenworth and rushed out to beg people to put them on their cigarette machines or just leave them on their bar.

We participated in John’s dreams and did what we could when we could. Some of us, including myself, went on to work full time for The Reader and support and raise a family. The memories are many, memorable and beyond belief!

When I look back, I can only think it’s another chapter of my life. Where fact is stranger than fiction.

Johnny Greece, aka “The French Fry Monster” to my kids, will always remain a legend in my memories.

Through my eight decades up to this point, I have yet to find anybody that compared to John Heaston. I am glad from the tip of my toes that I was able to be a part of it as a hippie professional.

When John asked me to jot down some memories, there is no way I could touch upon just a few. I worked for The Reader for the first 5–6 years, with every day being a new experience. And John always made it happen. The culture of The Reader and the product itself will be thoroughly missed.

— Geoffrey Wertheim

Learning to Craft Journalism In 2005, I was hired as Arts editor at The Reader. It was my first fulltime journalism gig after college, and in the next three

years I learned the valuable bedrock of skills that I continue to use and build upon.

I worked alongside some of the best humans: Andrew Norman, Eric Stoakes, Jared Cvetas, Ethan Bondelid, Rita Heaston Clark, and many more. But the person I learned the most from was publisher John Heaston. His sense of what stories needed to be told in Omaha, and how to tell them, gave us the leadership we needed to accomplish great things. I look back with fondness and pride on what The Reader has provided to Omahans.

In the beginning, I was assigned to cover City Council meetings, and quickly learned that this is where you discover the inner workings of a place and how stories lie in waiting there. Then, The Reader merged forces with the bilingual El Perico newspaper not long after, and our offices moved to South Omaha. We collaborated closely with El Perico’s staff on story ideas, translation, reporting, etc. I remember interviewing Omaha immigrants for an expansive investigative project that spanned several years. This type of reporting is difficult, but so incredibly important.

Among the people we interviewed were undocumented workers at meat packing plants who were injured at work but could not get healthcare or help because of their status. Through a translator, I interviewed an undocumented domestic abuse survivor whose husband was a legal resident and had abused her for years. She endured it because she felt there was nowhere for her and her children to turn. They felt trapped, forgotten, and were scared to tell their stories for fear of repercussions or deportation. But through

 Readers Reminisce I’ve always felt a personal connection to The Reader due to founder, Publisher and Editor John Heaston. John and I go back to our high school days and still maintain a lot of mutual friends. Early on, I connected with his coverage of the local music, art and entertainment scenes. As a musician myself, that is where I went to find all the great bands, shows and venues around town. And over the years I’ve appreciated The Reader’s coverage of local politics, issues and events in a manner that provided a different

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and fresh perspective from other mainstream media.

John and I met not long ago to discuss the major changes occurring in the news and publishing business, and he had no shortage of ideas about the future of journalism and technology in our state, including the great partnership with El Perico. I’m sorry to see such a valuable, accessible (and free!) community resource coming to an end. Thank you, John and the staff, for the hard work, dedication and passion you brought to the

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O M A H A communication and mutual trust, we were able to offer basic humanity in someone to listen, something they deserved.

I will never forget the most challenging reporting project I’ve ever participated in: the economic mismanagement of the publicly funded Metropolitan Community College. After The Reader started publishing its reports, the Omaha World-Herald dug in, too, and after a lengthy (painstaking) investigation, a high-ranking school official resigned.

But the experience of a lifetime came for me when I shadowed Ernie Chambers in 2008, when he was term-limited out of his seat (the first time) in the Nebraska Legislature.

Chambers is a hero of mine, and I’m glad he was able to return to many more years of stellar service. Thank you for everything, Mr. Chambers.

In these complex news stories for The Reader, the leads and direction were all propelled by Mr. John Heaston. From city politics to statewide issues like wind energy, to minority representation, to arts news, Heaston had the pulse of Omaha and the courage, grit, and ethos to tell more complete stories.

Now, more than 15 years later, I realize that I learned about journalism at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and that was a wonderful precursor.

But I learned how to put the craft into practice and be a journalist from working at The Reader. For that, I will always be grateful. It remains one of the most fulfilling jobs I’ve ever had.

Thank you for everything, John. I know how much you love this community, and it loves you!

— Tessa Jeffers

submissions edited for brevity and clarity

job every day. I know it’s been a labor of love and you’ve had an incredible run!

— Pete Festersen, Omaha City Council President Thanks for some “reel” great memories. With a lot of sadness at the closing of a chapter in Omaha media history, I wanted to say thank you and share my memory of the impact your paper had on my life. In addition to always enjoying the many stories which could not be found in any other Omaha

newspaper, I was enriched in the world of Hollywood entertainment thanks in large part to your assistance.

Back in what now seems like eons ago, The Reader would partner with some local entity or business to sponsor premiere movie nights. As a weekly paper, it seemed that almost every edition would have an announcement regarding a movie premiere, and a location where the “mystery man” would be handing out passes during a certain time. I would

F A R E W E L L , search out the closest business to my house the very first night the paper hit the rack to discover this location and time, and my wife and I would get there way in advance to ensure we would secure a pass to some new Hollywood blockbuster.

Thanks to you and this enterprise, I not only found myself waiting for passes in some establishment which I would normally not have entered and found to my liking, but my wife and I were able to be among the first patrons in Omaha to see newly released films on an ongoing basis. Trust me when I say we saw lots and lots of movies thanks to The Reader and its sponsors and enjoyed a great many of those movies over the course of many years.

In addition to attending the premiere night and seeing the show, free movie posters would be distributed at a lot of these events.

I will confess and say that I always managed to procure a poster, which I would then bring to my office at work the next day and hang on the wall. I worked with four others, and we had at least 30 posters adorning our walls from movies of all genres. This made our office a place where people loved to hang out and discuss movies and led to interesting discussions about various films or actors.

— Richard Yost I appreciate The Reader for commemorating good in our community. Chris Bowling was good at reaching out for good stories and then going in deep to capture and share the meaningful, life-changing information with the community. I always looked forward to reading a copy when dining out around town. Thank you for your many years of making a difference!

— Teresa Hunter Wow! I was a bit surprised to hear that The Reader is going out of print. Twenty-nine years was a great run filled with good local stories. The Reader got on my radar while I was incarcerated. It seemed to be one of the very few places where even caged voices were allowed to be given voice. I had the opportunity to submit articles in The Reader while on both sides of the wall/fence. The Reader allowed marginalized voices in the Omaha community to be heard.

With the demise of The Reader, fewer local community vessels (Flatwater Free Press, Omaha Star, 1st Sky Omaha, Mundo Latino and Nebraska Examiner) are left to cover important local news. I

appreciate and I am grateful for The Reader allowing my voice to be transported from the margins to the fullest of its pages. A big salute to The Reader. Thanks for your service to the community.

— Shakur Abdullah Good journalism is a blessing to our country. Various outlets provide differing points of view.

This is essential in our democratic republic. I will miss The Reader and the perspective it has provided to our community for so many years.

I was blessed to work with Chris Bowling on an essential series of stories he did on the failure of Nebraska’s mental healthcare system.

His in-depth look at the crisis has opened many eyes in the community. I continue to distribute them as I work to change our system for the better.

Chris gathered real stories from people who are dealing with this crisis. He gleaned information from both sides of the issue, providers and patients. These stories needed to be told, and there are so many more that must be heard.

— Tim Heller Nik Fackler and I once animated a commercial for The Reader in the style of Don Hertzfeldt’s “Rejected.” It was rejected.

— Aaron Gum Simply put, there is literally no other publication in Omaha that covers the arts like The Reader.

John Heaston’s gift to the community has always been more than just the arts, of course. However, his and The Reader’s absence will be acutely felt. John’s generosity and support of the arts, via The Reader, has been far greater than I’ve seen from any publication in the past several decades. Even the Omaha World-Herald never devoted so many writers and reviewers to the arts — and it’s not even close.

I’d like to give a special shoutout to Mike Krainak, as well. Krainak’s voice and consistent support of the arts have been outstanding.

Although I don’t consider myself a practicing artist anymore, at least not like I was when I moved to Omaha in 2004, he wrote about my work during those first couple of decades like no other reviewer. He, and The Reader, gave much-appreciated support to the work, which was often overly political and sometimes overly conceptual, and usually fell outside the expectations of traditional abstract and nonobjective artwork.

His reviews were always done with a depth and curiosity I’d never

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seen from literally any other reviewer, with the possible exception of Kim Carpenter, especially the large projects like “Nuclear Dichotomies,” “Extraordinary Rendition,” and “The Museum of Alternative History.” The void that will be left by the team, and certainly the publication, is hard to imagine. I send so much love to John and his team, particularly the writers, as they each move on and bless us with their insights and talents via other spaces and publications. I truly wish them all the very best.

– Tim Guthrie The Reader was covering in an excellent way all art exhibitions coming from Berlin and Germany to the Garden of the Zodiac Gallery in the Old Market and to the Artists Coop.

Either it was a small note or a big article with deep insights, and a with a solid art historical background by Janet, Mike or Kent. Always well prepared with interviews, the articles draw a big crowd to the exhibitions.

It’s time to say THANK YOU again and again.

— Christian Rothmann and Dr. Matthias Harder, Berlin, Germany I heard about this when we had our opening reception, and so many people came through that heard about the show from The Reader. I can’t tell you how often this happens – that someone arrives to see an exhibition and says they heard about it from The Reader, never having visited or heard of the Fred Simon Gallery previously.

Thank you for everything that you have created! It is imperative to have news sources like what you have provided in Omaha. I will keep all my digits crossed that something can resurface and carry this mission forward.

Thank you, Mike!

— Meagan Dion I’ve collected almost every issue for the last four years!! They’re all sitting in an art box, waiting to someday be re-used in various projects. We get these issues delivered to my job, and it’s been a genuine pleasure reading real, local stories from Omaha!! it’s heartbreaking to see it end. You guys have been around longer than I’ve been alive. I hope the rest of your life runs bright and beautifully. Thank you for all the work you’ve put in!!

— Viol Denever

It must have been in the late 1980s, maybe in the early 1990s, when I first encountered John.

It was during the setting up of a stage for that year’s Summer Arts Festival in the Old Market. The stage was being set up within view of the 10th Street viaduct to the east. Luigi Waits and his band were the first to perform, as I hung out with camera in hand, hoping to catch a shot of Luigi.

Instead I became involved in a discussion with this young dude, who made eye contact and was a multitask maven! Over the years, I have run into Mr. Heaston, always witnessing his consummate connection with the community that was the source of his reporting and goings-on. His office was a welcoming place where even a Kansas Citian outsider, like me, felt comfortable and at ease talking and discussing the Magic City side of things. I am relieved because of him throwing a lifeline to keep El Perico from disappearing. You da man, Johnny H.!

— Jose “Chato” Garcia Ever since moving to Omaha in 1993, I would look at The Reader for the latest in local music and also to see if anyone were selling vintage collectibles like concert shirts, Star Wars figures and lunchboxes. I even used to place ads in there for people to contact me if they wanted to sell. I did get a few lunchboxes via this route ... a long time ago. Today I’m sure a couple of those are hanging on the wall of lunchboxes in connection with my exhibit at The Durham Museum!

Going to miss The Reader. What a cool local, hip magazine for people in my demographic.

— Mark A Kelehan When I started at Metropolitan Community College, I was reported to be the “alleged marketing director.” My mom received a number of phone calls from friends who asked if I had the job. And that’s how I met John Heaston!

— Sheila O’Connor I just want to say thank you to John Heaston and The Reader team.

John and team have been incredible supporters of local arts and music. I truly have appreciated this over the years as they have supported projects that I have been part of as well as turned me on to new artists and bands. You will be missed.

Thank you!!!

— John Wolf

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F A R E W E L L ,

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Big Daddy’s Big Heart

Eric Lee Stoakes, who died in 2018, embodied the spirit of The Reader.

Eric Lee Stoakes’ Talent and Infectious Energy Influenced Many Journalists

by Tara Spencer

S

ometimes, a person comes into your life with the force of a Mack truck, and while you don’t know what hit you at the time, you’re happy you got hit.

That’s how I feel about my sweetest friend, Eric Lee Stoakes, known to many in the creative community as “Big Daddy.” My experience with him is not uncommon.

His ideas were grand, his energy infectious. Those fortunate enough to be in his sphere for even a short period were affected. He touched lives in a way few humans can.

I never thought I would have a mentor. Maybe it’s a Gen X thing, but my respect for most of humanity, especially the man part, was low. I was jaded and disenfranchised and saw people who put in the effort as being naïve and banal. Eric changed all that, and in the process changed the course of my life.

As he did for so many others.

We met shortly after I moved to Omaha. I was working at a bar, and he came in with my not-quite-a-friend-yet Erica.

(Yes, they were Eric and Erica.)

They were roommates at the time, and when she brought him in, I was like, “Who the f*** wears sunglasses inside at night?”

Getting to know him, it was clear he wasn’t what I initially thought. The level of excite-

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ment he could bring to a night out was the same as the level he brought to work. That was something I learned when he convinced me to help at The Reader, creating the music calendar and helping him with events.

After several years, he talked me into going back to school for journalism, having never read a single word I’d written besides that calendar. Intuitively, he knew my passion for writing, though I never shared my work with anyone. His near-constant “nudging” pushed me to do so, and I thank him for that every day.

While in school, my internship was, of course, at The Reader.

When I graduated, he persuaded Reader Publisher-Editor John Heaston to hire me.

Working there, I met so many others whose lives were influenced by Eric. He was encouraging and patient, able to lead and correct in the best way possible. There were no stupid questions. His experience, input and guidance were invaluable.

In many ways, for me, he embodied the spirit of The Reader – a creative underdog who kept surprising people, continuing to reinvent and challenge those who dared to doubt.

When he left to work at Omaha Magazine, I followed him.

Sadly, that’s where his tenure in Omaha’s journalism scene came to an end.

September 2023

He died in 2018, at age 51. He was, to my mind, still thriving in his career. He was working to make Encounter magazine the embodiment of the vibrant visions he had in his brain, and he had the photographer (Bill Sitzmann) and designer (Derek Joy) who could pull it off.

that turned into “Project: Puppy Pageant.” (Though all dogs were welcome.) Never one to leave people – or animals – out, he would make sure every winner got something just for trotting down the runway.

The shows often benefited the Midlands Humane Society, an organization dear to his heart.

To say his death was a loss to our creative scene seems like a giant understatement.

When Heaston asked me to write about Eric for this, I was overwhelmed. The truth is, his story could be told in 100 ways, by 100 people who knew him.

We would all have different stories, but it’s likely they would be similar in at least one way – his encouragement to push us creatively helped us grow, in ways we couldn’t have imagined.

Eric’s creativity knew no bounds, and even when an idea didn’t pan out, he made the best of it, and those involved still had a great time.

He once persuaded the owner of a bar I was working at to put on an ’80s night. Just for fun. Attendance was less than stellar, but those who showed were dressed to fight for their right to party. Everyone who was there had a great time, and that was all Eric wanted.

Many of his favorite projects involved fashion, and he was able to persuade strangers to model in his shows. He even had a hand in helping to create Omaha Fashion Week.

The Goth Ball was a personal favorite. It was an incredible night out for all the dark, lovely souls he adored, and one year he managed to bring in a designer from “Project Runway” to MC. But his biggest “pet” projects were his fashion shows for dogs

Not having him in this world has been excruciating at times.

There’s no one I trusted more, personally or professionally.

Whenever I meet young writers, I am sorry they will never get the chance to have him as a mentor. I often try to think of what Eric would say to guide them, to push them to be better, more creative, to think outside the box. And I remind myself that while he is no longer physically in our world, his influence is still out there. It’s in every person whose life he touched, and we can do our best to continue his legacy of positivity and hope.

That’s something I never thought I would believe in. But here I am. And I have Eric to thank for that.

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Delivering His Truth

Kyle Tonniges Had a Tell-ItLike-It-Is Writing Style

by Summer Miller

to a friendship and professional relationship that lasted the next 23 years. I did apply for that sales position, got it and eventually worked in multiple editorial positions at The Reader, for which I was fortunate to edit many of Kyle’s pieces.

In the ’90s and beyond, The Reader rose to meet the community’s need for arts and entertainment reporting, and Kyle was there from the beginning, entertaining readers with his acerbic wit, clever turn of a phrase, and vast knowledge of musical genres.

Kyle Tonniges, who died in 2020, helped open doors to new worlds for other journalists

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e were sitting on the floor of his apartment near Farnam or Park Avenue, maybe Harney Street. I’m not exactly sure. It was the ’90s and we were young and aspiring writers.

Well, Kyle Tonniges was an actual writer, and he was encouraging me to apply for a sales position (classified ads if that tells you anything) at The Reader, just to get my foot in the door.

That brief conversation over crappy beer or cheap wine led

While people initially flocked to The Reader for the listings of things to do, it was the critics who told readers who and what to love. Kyle did not wax poetic, entertain any kind of sentimentality in writing (or people), and had little issue with explaining things as he saw them. He once described a band’s most recent album as “equivalent to a musical turd” and a certain classification of books as having “the warmth of a tax return.”

While comments like that might have earned him a reputation for being caustic, it also proved he could be trusted. When Kyle liked a show, band, album or book he meant it, and readers knew they could count on him to tell the truth and make them laugh in the process.

His writing talent was innate, and he is one of the few people who spoke exactly as he wrote.

Intelligent, witty, and engaging on all fronts, he was also gen-

erous with his knowledge and time. When he started writing for Publisher’s Weekly and I moved onto the world of food media, he frequently shared books and up-and-coming authors with me – people he thought were worthy of a boost because their talent was unmistakable. Just months before he died, Kyle asked if I could connect with a friend’s daughter who wanted to pursue book publishing. His ability to connect with people, and make them laugh, was enhanced by his bracingly big smile. It’s trite to say, but it was infectious, and I think he knew that.

Kyle died on May 21, 2020, in the thick of the pandemic. He had fought brain cancer and beat it a decade before, but it returned and spread to his lungs. This time, he couldn’t fight it anymore and we lost him within weeks. His loss still sits heavy with those who loved him and called him a friend.

One Cemetery Plot

For Sale

Located in the Crestview section of Westlawn-Hillcrest Cemetery located at 57th and Center, Omaha, NE.

Valued at $3700

will sell for $3100.

For everyone who read him and welcomed his words, he left an imprint, made you laugh, introduced you to your new favorite band, book or album.

That’s what good writers do — open doors to new worlds. And Kyle was one of the best.

Join us for Live Local, Regional, and International acts every Thursday through Saturday at The Down Under Lounge.

We are speechless and so proud to have received 17 Readers’ Awards; including Best Small Music Venue, Best Bar with Live Music, and so many other honors we couldn’t have achieved without Omaha’s love and support.

Best Happy Hour in town!

Monday-Saturday: 3-7pm Sunday Funday: 3pm-2am

JOIN US

every Sunday Funday for all-day Happy Hour, $5 Bloodys, $15 Bottomless Mimosas, Anime Sunday, Booze Bingo @ 8pm, Sunday Funday Karaoke @ 10!

Please contact John Taylor,

402-689-2220

September 2023

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Fall

Art s

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V I S U AL

Any Given Saturday

ART

Metro Arts Venues Kick Off Autumn’s Promising Exhibition Season

by Janet L. Farber

I

n Nebraska, fall means football as Big Red action dominates the headlines. But the arts community has its game plan ready for Any Given Saturday, as galleries and museums fill their rosters with promising talent.

What follows are those shows available at press time.

Kaneko kicks off its annual Soirée celebration with another solo exhibition centered on the sculptors whose works grace the Gene Leahy Mall. “Linda Fleming: Experimenta De Vacuo Spatio” (Sept. 29-Feb. 2) provides a retrospective of sculpture, drawing and wall works that trace her

56-year career. Working from studios in the Mountain West, Fleming creates open, latticework sculptures that are as much air as material, diagraming invisible physical forces from the atomic to the atmospheric. (thekaneko. org) The Bemis Center continues its fall rituals with its annual “Benefit Art Auction,” whose offerings are on view beginning Oct. 13, culminating with its ever-popular fundraising event on the evening of Oct. 27. The gallery will return to its regular exhibition schedule with two shows (Dec. 7-April 14): “Neo-Custodians: Woven

Bemis Center: Paolo Arao, “Collective Comfort,” ongoing. Sewn canvas, corduroy, cotton, denim, silk, wool. Current dimensions: 125 x 506 inches. Photo courtesy of Paolo Arao

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September 2023

Narratives of Heritage, Cultural Memory, and Belonging” showcases the work of artists whose prac- U-CA: Amaryllis R. Flowers, “The Girl Has Teeth and the Teeth Are Tired,” tices are informed

by African textiles 2022, ceramic, video, synthetic and the cultural, human hair, bones gifted from a social and political friend, vertebrae and clay. threads woven into their contemporary customary ways of describing contexts. Concurrently, the solo the world as well as traditional show “Paolo Arao: Reverberaboundaries of taste and fine art tions” features the Filipino-Amermedia. (www.u-ca.org) ican artist’s recent geometric Creighton University’s Lied Art abstractions in sewn paintings, Gallery continues its collaboraweaving and site-specific installation with its Medical Humanities tions. (bemiscenter.org) program with its first offering of Keeping with tradition, Gallery the semester, “Positive Exposure: 1516 kicks off the next installChange How You See, See How ment of the “Nebraska Biennial” You Change” photographic (Sept. 8-Dec. TBD). Artists affiliexhibition featuring the work of ated with the state will be repreRick Guidotti (Sept. 8-Oct. 6). sented by works in nearly every Inspired to create life-affirming art form, with jurors’ awards images of individuals suffering given to works deemed most genetic disorders, Guidotti excellent in their medium. The founded the Positive Exposure orlast “Biennial” featured over 100 ganization to help address stigma artists, so expect a crowd-pleasand exclusion based on appearing array of home-state talent. ance. Following that show, the (gallery1516.org/opening-2) gallery presents “Emily Stokes: The drawing and sculpture Printmaking” (Oct. 20-Nov. 19). show “New Work by Amaryllis R. A recent addition to CU’s art Flowers” at the Union for Confaculty, Stokes combines screentemporary Art (Sept. 16-Dec. 2) printing with other print or paintturns iconic symbol sets on their ed media, including a series of ear. Inspired by visual systems hand-constructed accordion-fold of communication ranging from books, that humorously explore cartoons to Egyptian scrolls, from tensions between the new and Caribbean Surrealisms to alchemthe familiar. (fb.com/Creightonical diagrams, Flowers upends UniversityLiedArtGallery)

Fall

Art s

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V I S U AL be permanently under tension.” (www.baader-meinhof.org)

RBRG: Tom Majeski, “Ashland 215,” 2014, monotype construction MCC will highlight the printbased installations of Mary Claire Becker, assistant professor at Oklahoma State University (Sept.

14-Oct. 10). Becker takes cues from idyllic images of wilderness, whether filtered through Victorian or Instagram lenses, and re-presents them in dimensional wallpapers and sprawling installations, creating fascinating but fetishized landscapes and dream images of nature. (mccneb.edu/ gallery) Downtown galleries have vibrant offerings scheduled. The Fred Simon Gallery will present a collection of folk art (Sept.

MCC: Mary Claire Becker, “Mosaic Virus IV (Anna Ruysch Redux),” 2021, hand-carved linocut key image with laserengraved woodblock

BFF Gallery: Joan Sangimino, “Focus et Ordinare Per Stercore Procellum,” 2023, mixed media 29-Nov. 29), followed by a solo look at Lincoln artist Santiago Cal (Dec. 8-Jan 31). The Garden of the Zodiac Gallery welcomes the return of perennial favorite Humberto Chavez Mayol (Oct. 6-Dec. 3), who will continue a series of engagements with Omaha’s South 24th Street community. (fb.com/TheGardenOfTheZodiac) At Roberta & Bob Rogers Gallery on the South Side, Vinton Street offerings celebrate a mix of new and familiar faces. “Tom Majeski: Prints and Constructions” (Sept. 8-Oct. 7) honors the work of this longtime area artist who influenced the printmaking community through his pursuit of monotypes and dimensional print constructions, and his role as art professor at UNO, where he established a long-running print workshop that brought in many nationally recognized and regional artists to deepen the student experience. Another retired talent from UNO is book, letterpress and handmade paper artist Bonnie O’Connell, who will be showing “Prints, Books & Paper with Works From Her Collection” (Nov. 10-Dec. 23). (www.rbrg.org) Baader-Meinhof Gallery, still luxuriating in its new space, brings in the work of Los Angeles artist Patrick Carroll (Sept. 8-Oct. 22). His show will appeal to the literati and “knitterati” alike, featuring text-based handknit textiles that are stretched and framed. His “picture-poem-paintings” play with “what it means to

Indie stalwart Project Project has a full slate of monthly shows.

“Patty Talbert: Black Joy” (opening Sept. 8) begins the season with new acrylic paintings on wood that combine her interests in batik-inspired geometric design, word play and expressing positivity. Alex Myers (opening Oct. 13) adds virtual reality technology to the Build-A-Bear experience. “Undeniable,” (opening Nov. 10) features a group show of artists associated with Angel Guardians, an organization that promotes creative engagement for individuals across all spectrums of ability. Finally, textile artist Wendy Weiss teams up with sound sculptor Jay Kreimer on “Cow Parts” (opening Dec. 8), riffing on the gallery’s roots as a butcher shop. (www.projectprojectomaha.com) Generator Space welcomes the Unceded Artist Collective, featuring Native American artists Nathaniel Ruleaux, Mi’oux Stabler, and Jennie Wilson. Their exhibition (Sept. 8-Oct. 20) explores indigenous land use and regenerative agriculture practices tied to a Landback initiative at Carter Lake, as well as a new indigenous garden project at Joslyn Castle. “NEURODIFERENCIA,” a collaborative show with neuro-atypical artists Ben Nollete, Sener, and Alba Magaña, combines sound installation, painting, and virtual performances in collaboration with other neurodivergent people (Nov. 10-Dec. 15). (www.amplifyarts. org/exhibitions-current) Benson shines brightly this fall as well. Petshop’s schedule begins with Gloria Ceren (through Oct. 27), a multidisciplinary artist who employs a variety of

ART media as a way of embodying her hybridized identity. “Evan Marnell: I’M TRYING, I PROMISE I AM” reveals the artist’s humanity by baring his struggles to find housing, healing and happiness (Oct. 6-Nov. 24). The portraits comprising “Brad Marr: The Tourist” spring from the premise that humans are tourists on Earth (Nov. 3-Dec. 29). (fb.com/bensonpetshop) After its annual Youth Art exhibition in September, BFF Gallery will feature “Joan Sangimino: Stand,” conceived in response to the recent Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade (Oct. 6-27).

Over at MaMO, printmaker Jessie Fischer will begin a residency in September, culminating in a public opening (Oct. 6). She will be followed by Seah, a multidisciplinary artist who aims to create a safe space to direct rage about violence done to the human body (opening Nov. 3). www. bffomaha.org/gallery Maple Street Construct opened its fall exhibition on Sept.

1, featuring summer residency program artist Lara Schoorl. A creative writer based in Amsterdam and Los Angeles, Schoorl will present a mail/copy art publication edited during her residency as well as three-dimensional essays, a form of writing in space with which she’s been experimenting. Lastly, Benson newcomer Ming Toy Gallery has announced “La Femme Fantastique,” featuring the work of Shelby and Josh Audiss (Oct. 6-28), and the “RABBIT! RABBIT! Invitational,” celebrating the Chinese Year of the Rabbit and introducing artists touching on such themes as luck, mercy and peace (Dec. 1-29). (fb.com/ maplestconstruct and fb.com/mingtoygallery)

Project Project: Patty Talbert, “Black Joy,” 2023, acrylic on wood panel.

September 2023

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RE VIEW

‘Falsescapes’

Josh Powell’s Collages ‘Observe’ a Speculative Vision of the Future

by Kent Behrens

“Afternoon Watch, Florence Settlement,” 2023 mixed media on paper, 36” x 24”

M

ixed-media artist Josh Powell’s current exhibit, “Falsescapes” at Garden of the Zodiac, imagines outcomes and hopeful alternatives to some unnamed disaster or near-apocalypse in an unspecified future.

An art teacher at Bennington Public Schools, Powell is also co-curator at Omaha’s wellknown art venue, Project Proj-

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ect, in South Omaha’s Vinton Street district.

His technique of layering cut images, from found and prepared sources, results in a final vignette of color, shape, and texture that mutates into surreal and abstractly symbolic storybook landscapes, buildings, and skies.

Powell relies on painting and drawing, and most important-

September 2023

ly on collage techniques of Even animals are represented cutting and pasting in various as surviving the devastation, layers to obtain a diverse but mostly. inviting accretion of shapes, As implied in the show’s tones and colors. The collage title, “Falsescapes,” each work aspect of “drawing” with cut suggests a scenario – possible paper, images, preprinted and hopeful responses to an textures and colors emphasizes inevitable tragedy – a tragedy the fractured and fragmented unspecified but hinted at being world that might be left to us, environmental in nature. Each and the precarious challenges work is specific to its own story, of a damaged land and mysteri- or event. Powell explains, “The ous collaborators. story goes hand in hand with Powell “borrows” from the work, (each) an illustration preprinted images, like newsor flashes of the storyline.” papers, magazines and similar, Powell views this re-birth as but often will create a painting cathartic. “There’s something “solely for the reason to cut it honest, beautiful, and calming up and use in other pieces.” about starting over,” he said, His is not the dystopian world “even though it can have eerie, of war, famine, pillage and uncertain or terrifying underpestilence, et al, of “Mad Max” tones.” or “Clockwork Orange.” These works instead reflect resilience, perseverance, human chutzpah within a mise-en-scéne of near annihilation, abstruse structures, and well-intentioned people.

Some of the work features images of human beings, sometimes with obscured faces, and much is insinuated rather than directed using images of landforms, plants, roads or paths, buildings and abstruse structures.

“Southern Forest Camp,” 2023, mixed

media on paper, 18” x 24”

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Art s

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RE VIEW

“Modern Abandoned Prairie With Booby Traps,” 2023, mixed media on paper, 20” x 16” (left) “Ode to the Observer, Excavation Site, Satir,” 2023, mixed media on paper, 30” x 24” (right) — All images Josh Powell.

Avoiding the cartoonish humor of collage illustrators like Terry Gilliam, Powell produces a “Handmade Beach Trap With Decoy,” 2023, mixed media on paper, 12” x 12” strongly abstract result, dense with details; presented Collage has a long history; here are a cryptic arrangement around 1910-11, Pablo Picasso of elements, begging the viewand Georges Braque are said er for translations, open to the to have “discovered” the art viewers’ imagination. of collage. As part of their Some pieces are less dense, investigations into abstracless complex; for instance, tion, specifically Cubism, they “New Central North West incorporated cut-out words Power Station” and “There’s and images from periodicals, Been An Uneasy Truce posters and wallpaper, pasting them into their paintings. Thus, Between Them” are good examples of “less is more,” was artistic license given to the with graphic shapes dominatdeliberate “borrowing” from ing the piece, as opposed to pre-made, manufactured and details. found sources.

“Afternoon Watch, Florence Settlement,” 2023 mixed media on paper, 36” x 24”

Recurring dark entities, which the artist calls “Observers,” resembling silhouettes of Russian nesting dolls, regularly appear in the landscape, some in the far background, a few principle to the piece, but all seemingly contemplative and benign. As they have no “face,” it is not clear as to their purpose. They easily could be observer, guardian, voyeur or spy, or even overweight, fellow “citizens” for all we know.

A few other highlights: Of the three larger, unframed works, “We Found A Street Vendor in Sausalito …” takes the “Observer” into the forefront, using it as a crazy quilt of images and textures, possibly a repository of the chaos that was.

Also, “Ode to the Observer, Excavation Site, Satir” and “Afternoon Watch, Florence Settlement” offer similar landforms supporting alter-like constructions that stand, possibly, as devotional tributes, but also as a testimony to humanity’s tenacity.

Powell’s Observer is featured more prominently in “It Stood Tall and Very Still, Sketch From An Eyewitness,” which features a substantially more ominous Observer, this one modelled with highlights to indicate shape, making it more real and believable.

Viewers may note that faces are sometimes obscured, in a few cases with red disks. When asked, Powell says of this, “Faces can create connections to emotions and memories that could alter the meaning.” This is most evident in “Southern Forest Camp,” a piece that alludes to development of new community, or possibly even a new tribalism. It also could allude to the “mutations” commonly included in “aftermath” scenarios. It also could allude to the “mutations” commonly included in “aftermath” scenarios.

The show includes 18 images – 15 smaller framed images and three larger, unframed pieces. Viewers are the ultimate “Observer” here, and Powell effectively serves up an alternative collage of, at most, an uncertain future.

Josh Powell’s “Falsescapes” is showing at the Garden of the Zodiac in Omaha’s Old Market Passageway. The show runs through Oct. 1. Hours to view the works are Tuesday through Saturday noon to 8 p.m., Sundays noon to 6 p.m., or by appointment. For viewing appointments outside of open hours, contact 402-917-4658.

The gallery is closed Mondays.

For further information, contact Zodiac Gallery at 402 346-1877, or Garden of the Zodiac on Facebook.

September 2023

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The ater

A Vampire & Shakespeare

The Fall Theater Lineup Also Includes a Look at the School-to-Prison Pipeline

by Courtney Bierman

O

maha’s stages have just begun the 2023-24 theater season. This autumn, the Playhouse, Brigit Saint Brigit and the Bluebarn have some of their traditional fare with a few surprises thrown in, including a reimagining of “Dracula” and a production of one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies with a guest director. Here are highlights from the coming season:

“Pipeline” at the Omaha Community Playhouse, Oct. 6 through Nov. 5 “Pipeline,” a 2017 play by Dominique Morisseau, follows Nya (Deborah Dancer), a Black teacher at an underserved, inner-city high school. Her son Omari (Wayne Hudson) is threatened with expulsion by his elite, upstate prep school, which has a predominantly white student body. Nya must navigate her role as a parent and educator in the face of an education system that often fails Black men and boys.

The title refers to the schoolto-prison pipeline, the concept that underfunded public schools with students from

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marginalized communities often funnel young people into the criminal justice system.

Breanna Carodine directs “Pipeline,” coming off her Omaha Community Playhouse (OCP) directorial debut with “Pretty Fire” last spring. ‘“Pipeline,’ to me, is kind of a reflection of the education system and the things that are kind of wrong with it,” Carodine said. “To me, ‘Pipeline’ is a really good showcase of how everyone is trying their hardest. And the issue is systemic. No matter what the teachers do, the parents do, or the students do, the issue is above them. These teachers, parents and students are putting everything they have into creating these environments, and it’s just not enough without additional help.”

Racism in American education is perennially relevant, but OCP’s production of “Pipeline” comes at a particularly contentious time. Schools nationwide

September 2023

are still struggling to pick up where they left off before the pandemic began. Florida’s history curriculum glosses over the brutality of slavery, and AP African American Studies is a banned class — Arkansas is likely to follow. Closer to home, hundreds of teachers resigned from Omaha Public Schools after the 2022-23 term.

Nebraska teachers and public education advocates are also fighting to repeal the Opportunity Scholarship Act, or LB753, which grants tax credits for donations made for private school scholarships.

Stephen Santa is the artistic director of the Omaha Commu-

nity Playhouse. He said he was “profoundly moved” by “Pipeline” the first time he saw it several years ago when he was employed by a school.

“Education in America right now is having such a shift, and it’s being politicized, and there’s such a power struggle with who and what should be taught in our schools,” Santa said.

“I think this play does a really good job of showing people what it’s like on the inside, and getting in the trenches of what it’s like to be a teacher in modern-day America and the challenges that face them.”

The OCP fall lineup also includes “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” which runs Sept.

15 through Oct. 15.

“Dracula 77,” a Brigit Saint Brigit Theater Company production at Benson Theatre, Oct. 5 through 15 Brigit Saint Brigit Theater Company’s executive director, Murphy Scott Wulfgar, adapted

Fall

Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” in 2003 into a three-and-a-halfhour production that remained faithful to the beloved epistolary novel. Twenty years later, he’s taken artistic liberties with the source material.

“Dracula 77” has the same characters, story and themes, but it takes place in 1977 New York instead of 1890s Eastern Europe. Wulfgar, who also directs the show, said he wanted to keep the gothic grittiness of the book but bring it closer to home. He chose the setting to keep an undercurrent of danger — New York in the ’70s was dirtier and had a higher violent crime rate than it does today — but keep it early enough that the characters wouldn’t have cell phones or be able to Google “vampire.”

Wulfgar also chose to cast “Dracula 77” type-free, meaning any actor could audition regardless of race, gender or ability. He updated the characters to fit the period and to critique the sexism in Stoker’s book.

Mina Murray (Hanaa Tatby) is a determined journalism student at Columbia University instead of a subservient Victorian woman. Her best friend Lucy Westenra (Sophie Knauss) owns a nightclub and grew up steeped in the Flower Power idealism of the 1960s. Her downfall in the book is her physical beauty — Dracula can’t resist making her his victim. In “Dracula 77,” it’s

Art s

Lucy’s personality that makes her desirable, not just her looks.

“When it all adds up at the end, somebody should be able to look at the adaptation and say, ‘Wow, that’s really familiar,’” Wulfgar said. “If they know the book, like, ‘Wow, all of these things are in the novel, but I’m experiencing them in a new way.’”

Shae’Kell Butler plays Arthur Holmwood, Lucy’s aristocrat fiancé. In “Dracula 77” Holmwood is a West Point graduate and Air Force veteran instead of an aristocrat. Coincidentally, it was a more traditional production of “Dracula” Butler saw as a freshman at UNO that made him want to pursue a career in theater.

“It’s definitely a full-circle moment,” he said.

“Dracula 77” is Butler’s Brigit Saint Brigit debut. He said even the first few days of rehearsals were exciting, and audiences should be excited for the full production.

“Expect something magical because I think that even within the few days that we’ve been together, the cast is spectacular,” Butler said. “And I feel like the story is going to be something new, something unique and something worth your time.”

Brigit Saint Brigit’s fall lineup also includes “Fireside Tales III,” running Oct. 27 through 31.

“Macbeth” at Bluebarn Theater, Sept.

21 through Oct. 22 Bluebarn doesn’t do much Shakespeare, but the end of Nebraska Shakespeare in 2022

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The ater

created a void.

For this fall’s “Macbeth,” the creative team brought in director Beth Ann Hopkins from New York.

Hopkins runs a Shakespeare theater company in Brooklyn, Smith Street Stage, with her husband Jonathan. She’s directed other works by Shakespeare and played a witch in “Macbeth,” but this is her first time directing the Scottish play.

Hopkins said the difference between acting and directing a work is the ability to multitask.

“It’s not just thinking about my character that I get to play,” she said. “It’s thinking about how all of these characters interact.”

“Macbeth” has been performed countless times and retold in about every way imaginable. Rather than trying to revolutionize a 400-year-old play, Hopkins said she’s aiming for a sense of timelessness.

The actors will carry swords (some modern adaptations opt for firearms instead) and wear nonperiod-specific clothing.

The actors’ hair is styled in a Viking-inspired manner, with partially shaved scalps and long braids — a style you’re as likely to see at a trendy bar as in a period-specific production.

Hopkins said the goal is to lean into the source material’s weirdness.

“I really want there to be a sense of the hair on the back of your neck standing up,” she said.

Jill Anderson plays Lady Macbeth and serves as the production’s costume design-

er — everyone wears multiple hats in community theater.

Anderson and Hopkins worked together as actors on “The Tempest” last year, Nebraska Shakespeare’s final production.

Anderson suggested Hopkins to Bluebarn’s artistic director, Susan Clement.

“I know that Beth Ann is a seeker; she is adventurous, and she loves to explore,” Anderson said. “She’s a wonderful director in that she’s super intellectual. And at the same time, she’s visceral and physical. She brings fire and guts to what she does, and I think that she will not be afraid to try anything at least once. So that’s exciting to me as a performer.”

Hopkins said she doesn’t put much stock in the “Macbeth” curse (the superstition is that speaking the play’s name inside a theater is bad luck). Anderson is similarly dismissive, though she did mention that during combat rehearsals, which took place in the theater’s backyard, huge flocks of black birds swirled ominously above the actors.

“It seems like a dark harbinger of things to come.”

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Music

Get Ready for the Sounds of Autumn

This Season Offers the Opera, the Symphony and The Police’s Greatest Hits

by Cheril Lee

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s the steaminess of summer fades (sort of), our thoughts lightly turn to fall. Autumn means pumpkin-spice lattes, trees with red and gold leaves and flannel shirts. It also means it’s time to head indoors and soak up some culture. Welcome to your fall music preview.

Omaha Performing Arts – Holland Music Club Omaha Performing Arts’ Holland Music Club kicks off fall on Oct. 13 with a concert featuring The Steel Wheels. The band’s music is influenced by the familiar sounds of the Virginia mountains, where the group was formed, mixed with insightful lyrics and an evolving sound.

That’s followed by a program with critically acclaimed rock ‘n’ soul singer Bette Smith on Nov. 10. Her songs combine gospel music she listened to in church with soul music played on street corners. The first half of the new season wraps up with a holiday offering. On Dec. 8, the Shaun Johnson Big Band Experience takes the stage. The group will play Christmas favorites in its big-band style. (o-pa.org)

Omaha Symphony The Omaha Symphony’s Masterworks season gets off to an impressive start with one of classical music’s heavy hitters, Grammy-winning pianist Emanuel Ax. The artist joins the symphony for Mozart’s Piano Concerto

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No. 25 on Sept. 22-23. That’s followed on Sept. 30 by a onenight-only concert with the symphony joining special guest Stewart Copeland on drums to perform The Police’s biggest hits. And this year’s traditional Symphony Spooktacular’s theme is Dia de los Muertos. This fun and festive concert takes place Sunday, Oct. 22, and will feature “March of the Little Goblins”

by Glaser, music from the film “Coco” and more. Everyone is invited to attend in costume and learn more about this rich Mexican tradition. Concerts take place at the Holland Arts Center. (omahasymphony.org)

Opera Omaha Who doesn’t love beautiful music in the park? Turner Park is the setting for Opera Omaha’s Opera Outdoors event on Sept. 8. This is the annual kick off to the 2023/2024 season and will feature highlights of the three upcoming operas as well as some of opera’s mostloved hits. The season officially begins at the Orpheum Theatre with Gaetano Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale” on Oct. 27 and 29.

This fun comic opera is about a grumpy old miser whose attempts to swindle a nephew out of his inheritance backfires. This crowd-pleaser is a delightful start to the season. (operaomaha.org)

UNO School of Music The UNO School of Music is offering three engaging pro-

September 2023

Critically acclaimed rock ‘n’ soul grams this fall at the singer Bette Simth will perform Strauss Performing as part of Omaha Performing Arts’ Arts Center. First Holland Music Club. Photo Facebook. up on Sept. 11, it’s a performance by Jamshid Jam feaa work by Florence Price, “Conturing Jean-Francois Charles & cert Overture 1.” This concert is Ramin Roshandel. The concert followed by a performance Nov. will feature Roshandel playing 11 called “Opera Unplugged.” the Persian setaˉr with digital The group will perform arias electronic processing by Iowa and scenes by Mozart, Nabucco professor Charles. This concert and Verdi. Orchestra Omaha’s is followed by an album recital, performances take place in “Storms and Stars” on Sept. the Simon Concert Hall at the 22. Shelby VanNordstrand, Omaha Conservatory of Music. soprano, and Jodi Goble, piano, (orchestraomaha.org) will perform selections from Goble’s song cycles “Valentines Organ Vesper Series from Amherst” (poetry by Emily The group offers chamber Dickinson) and “Sea Creatures.” music with talented performOn Nov. 9, UNO will host a ers in an intimate setting. All guest artist recital featuring programs are free. The series Colleen White on flute. White kicks off Sept. 8 with a perforis assistant professor of flute at mance by violinist Cristian Fatu Kansas State University, flutist and guitarist Beau Bledsoe. The with the chamber orchestra of duo will play pieces by Ravel, the Smoky Valley, and executive Granados, Piazzola and more. director of the Scheherazade One month later, on Oct. 8, the Music Festival. (tockify.com/ series continues with its annual uno.music/agenda) outdoor concert, featuring

Orchestra Omaha Orchestra Omaha is a community group. The musical ensemble was founded as the Omaha Municipal Orchestra in 1998 by area musicians. The group was renamed Orchestra Omaha in its eighth season. The orchestra’s 25th season begins Sept. 23 with “Song and Symphony.” This program features two pieces by Gustav Mahler: “Songs of A Wayfarer” and “Symphony No. 1, Mvt 1” and

the Back Alley Brass Band. The group plays New Orleans-style jazz music, and it should be a party for the whole family. (esperconcerts.org)

Fall will be here before you know it, with cooler temps following. So while you’re enjoying that hot apple cider next to an outdoor fire pit, plan your perfect season. There’s something for everyone in the family.

your ticket to

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March 8 Holland Music Club

April 2 Orpheum Theater

April 12 Holland Music Club October 14* – 15 Orpheum Theater

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November 10 Holland Music Club

April 12* Orpheum Theater

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November 10 Orpheum Theater

Nov 28 – Dec 3 Orpheum Theater

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*Sensory-inclusive performance available

ticketomaha.com 402.345.0606 The official ticket retailer of the Orpheum Theater and Holland Performing Arts Center

May 28 – June 9 Orpheum Theater

D i s h

Therein Lies the R.U.B.

Rotisserie Urban Bistro will open this fall in Aksarben Village

With Rotisserie Urban Bistro, Carlos Mendez Keeps Building His Legacy Story and Photos by Sara Locke 2009. Mendez bought out ownership, and eventually opened sister restaurant Little Espana at Rockbrook Village in December 2014. Both locations flourished, serving tapas, paella, and beautifully presented Spanish dishes that were as much a feast for the eyes as for the palate.

allow diners to avoid decision fatigue and simply immerse themselves in the experience.

With Little Espana firmly established and serving many of the original’s favorite dishes, Hunger Block may have become Mendez decided to synonymous with decadent desserts, close the Benson Espana but it was the authentic Latin street and launch a new food that made us hungry for more. concept. He brought chef Ben Maides onto his team to helm Au Couhe first article I published in rant at 6064 Maple in 2016.

Omaha was a story about

Hunger Block

T

Espana, and the reverence owner Carlos Mendez demonstrated with every detail of the establishment and the dishes it served. It’s only fitting that my final feature for The Reader checks in on Mendez, catches you up on his accomplishments, and bookends my run as contributing editor with a look at what he’s cooking up for Omaha these days.

Espana After earning his accounting degree, Mendez landed a side job serving tables at Benson’s Espana. Dutifully working his way up the ranks, he advanced to bartender and manager before owner Bill Graves decided to sell the popular establishment in

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Au Courant Regional Kitchen A modern concept, Au Courant has a menu limited only by the harvest. Chef Maides relies on hyper-seasonal and locally sourced ingredients to create unique experiences that have failed to disappoint even the toughest of customers. The six-course chef’s tasting menus change weekly, and focus on “New European” techniques and plating.

The extensive wine list at Au Courant would be enough to overwhelm a seasoned taster; thus, pairings are suggested to

SEPTEMBER 2023

Mendez has every reason to be loudly proud about the success of his numerous ventures, but at every turn, he deflects praise to his partners, chefs, and to Omaha diners for being willing to go along for the ride. In this case, he heaps praise on Maides for his skill and attention to detail.

Since the 2014 opening, Little Espana worked hard to live up to the reputation of its predecessor, but by 2018, Mendez was ready for a new challenge. He closed the restaurant at 11036 Elm St. and in its place launched Hunger Block alongside Rognny Edgardo Diaz Suarez.

He doesn’t mention the audaciously American culture thrown in for good measure, and for Instagram-ability. The over-the-top milkshakes became the must-have Hunger Block accessory. Served about the size of a young toddler, often topped with donuts, ice cream sandwiches, and obscene amounts of whipped cream, the gut-busting dessert was more ad-campaign than anything. Rather, it was the exquisite elevation of Latin street food that made Hunger Block worth returning to again and again.

But in May of 2022, Mendez and Suarez made the decision to close the doors on Hunger Block.

We told you last month about Dolomiti, a Northern Italian pizzeria and Inoteca that Mendez is opening with Tim Maides this fall. While the roster of Mendez’s restaurants we’ve mentioned is already a dizzying one, we have one more exciting announcement.

“We have a term, ‘La calle el hambre,’ which means The Hunger street.” Mendez said.

“Most cities in Latin America will have a calle el hambre, just a block where all of the food vendors are set up and locals go to grab a bite. We wanted to be a place where busy people could have a really delicious meal in the middle of the day or right after work.

Hunger Block really brought together the best cuisine They called it Little Espana, but the from all of these flavors and the portions were Latin cultures.”

truly generous.

D i s h R.U.B. Omaha Opening soon at Aksarben Village, Rotisserie Urban Bistro (R.U.B.) will be Omaha’s new casual dining destination this fall.

Housed in the former Green Belly at 1917 S 67th St., R.U.B isn’t your standard sweaty meat on a stick. Rather, this will be the culmination of Mendez’s years-long (we didn’t say obsession, but we might break out a thesaurus to find a softer way to say it) dedication to creating the ultimate 11-spice rub.

Spiced chicken and porchetta will soon be joined by the occasional suckling pig. Prime rib will make appearances from time to time, and sides will be added slowly to the menu and rotated, to keep the experience fresh and ensure that Mendez’s hunger for bringing Omaha new and exciting dishes is never fully satisfied.

He may seem invincible when it comes to inventing and executing excellent dining ideas, but Mendez’s humility takes over once again, saying “mala hierba nunca muere!” The bad weed never dies.

Mendez is in good company among Omaha chefs who are building inclusive, inventive, and innovative dining experiences.

While this article is the series finale on my contributions to Omaha’s dining culture, it’s nice to know that all of my favorite characters and guest stars are going to continue creating, and improving a kitchen culture in which chefs can grow and learn.

I promise to continue being aggressively supportive of local food leaders, and I can’t wait to see what’s next!

Your Reader Writer, Sara Locke

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W PICKS W and “knitterati” alike, featuring text-based, handknit textiles that are stretched and framed.

to do in

r e b m e t Sep September 8

Nebraska Biennial Gallery 1516

With titles such as “Julius,” “Affinities” (Transcription), “Machine” (Liberation from Drudgery), “Bridget Riley Scriptorium” (Mother System) and “Bona Nochi” (Polari University), his “picture-poem-paintings” play with “what it means to be permanently under tension,” according to Carroll’s artist statement. Carroll’s exhibit continues till Oct. 22.

September 13

Coheed and Cambria The Admiral

years, the last show featured over 100 artists, including 2021 Best in Show winner Merrill Peterson and his “South Window” oil on canvas.

Baader-Meinhof Keeping with tradition, Gallery 1516 opens its next edition of the “Nebraska Biennial” on Sept.

8, 6-9 p.m. Artists affiliated with the state will be represented by works in nearly every art form, with jurors’ awards given to works deemed most excellent in their medium: painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, ceramics/pottery, sculpture, digital art, multimedia/other, student and visitor favorite, a $1,000 prize in each.

Gallery 1516 reintroduced and developed the “Nebraska Biennial” exhibition in 2017. A juried exhibition held every two

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Drive-By Truckers The Admiral

The southern rock outfit DriveBy Truckers, based in Athens, Georgia, formed in 1996 and released its debut record in 1998.

They are touring in support of their 14th studio album, entitled “Welcome 2 Club XIII” (2022).

Raleigh, North Carolina, band American Aquarium, whose name is based on a Wilco lyric, formed in 2005 and will kick off the concert.

Tickets start at $29.50, before fees, for this 8 p.m. show, with doors at 7. All ages can attend.

September 14

September 8

Patrick Carroll exhibit

September 14

Silent Planet The Waiting Room Legendary prog-rockers Coheed and Cambria will tear up The Admiral on Sept. 13.

The band has been shredding since 1995, after forming in Nyack, New York, and releasing its debut full-length album, “The Second Stage: Turbine Blade,” in 2002.

Baader-Meinhof Gallery is California dreaming as it features the work of Los Angeles artist Patrick Carroll in his solo exhibit, “Personae,” opening Sept. 8. His show will appeal to the literati

September 2023

Coheed and Cambria’s latest record, “Vaxis – Act II: A Window of the Waking Mind” (2022), continues the band’s conceptual trajectory and delicate balancing act of sharpening heavy, progressive rock with electronic music.

Silent Planet, a metalcore band from Azusa, California, formed in 2009. They have released four albums since 2014, beginning with “The Night God Slept,” with their most recent release being “Iridescent” (2021).

Post-metal band Deafhaven (California) will open.

Supporting artists include the Omaha metal bands Wither Decay, Neo Sol, and Catsclaw, the latter making its debut live appearance at this show.

Tickets start at $37 before fees.

Doors open at 7 for this all-ages, 8 p.m. show.

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45 4/10/23 3:06 PM

W PICKS W Tickets cost $18-$20, before fees. The show begins at 7 p.m., with doors at 6.

September 15

Safari Room Reverb Lounge

which usually lean on romantic titles that give the music another layer of emotion and imagery.

September 28

Explosions’ third album, “The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place,” was released in 2003 to critical acclaim, and the group’s most recent album, entitled “End” (2023), has invoked a positive reaction among its dedicated fanbase.

Steelhouse Omaha

Tickets start at $38, before fees, for this 8 p.m. show. Doors open at 7, and all ages may attend.

September 23 Safari Room is an indie-rock outfit that was formed in Omaha but is based in Nashville, Tennessee. With four albums, their most recent record is “Live at Radio Artifact” in 2022.

Two dope Omaha bands — fellow indie rockers Bad Self Portraits and the psychedelic Sazcha — both of whom released EP’s in 2022, will support Safari Room’s return to the Big O. Score your tickets, starting at $13, before fees.

Doors open at 7 for the 8 p.m. show.

September 22

Explosions in the Sky The Admiral

Clockwerk On The Q Street Bar

Tickets start at $35, before fees. The show starts at 7:30 p.m., with doors at 6:30.

Everclear Clockwerk will perform at On The Q Street Bar on Sept. 23, which coincides with a band member’s birthday.

Barnato

The Omaha-based band is a rising unit that debuted this year, specializing in playing rock hits from the late’ 60s to the ’80s.

The Astro Amphitheater The Goo Goo Dolls will perform at La Vista’s Astro Amphitheater on Sept. 23.

After forming in 1986 in Buffalo, New York, and rising into the mainstream in 1995 with their single “Name,” the Goo Goo’s became a household and car-radio staple with their global smash hit, the ballad “Iris.”

September 2023

Babymetal is a band from Japan that has carved out an international following through a unique mixture of metal and J-pop, also called “kawaii” metal.

The group’s fourth album, “The Other One” (2023), was released to acclaim from fans and critics.

Dethklok, a melodic death-metal band born from the hit animated series “Metalocalypse” on Adult Swim, will play in support of its new album, “Dethalbum IV” (2023).

Dethklok combines heaviness with harmony while the lyrics blend morbidity with the mundane.

The show begins at 9 p.m.

And if you want to show up to the venue early and get in the birthday spirit, that’s encouraged. The bar hosts happy hour and specials after 6.

Goo Goo Dolls

46

Fitz and The Tantrums, hailing from Los Angeles, will open the show with their trademark spin on neo soul in the form of indie pop earworms.

September 27

September 23

EITS, formed in Texas, is known for its transcendent, instrumental post-rock songs,

Babymetal

Doors open at 6 p.m.

September 28 Everclear, formed in 1991 in Portland, Oregon, is known for such hits as “Father of Mine” and “Santa Monica,” songs that showcase a strong alternative rock identity, pulling from grunge and power pop to stand the test of time on alternative stations.

MSSV

Reverb Lounge

Joining the show will be The Ataris, a renowned punk band from Indiana, preceded by Nashville’s The Pink Spiders.

Tickets start at $50, before fees, for the 6 p.m. show. Doors open at 5:30.

MSSV will tear up Reverb Lounge on Sept. 28.

W PICKS W MSSV’s name is an acronym for Main Stream Stop Valve, raising as many questions as it does answers, complimenting the band’s experimental nature of its music.

The band is composed of Mike Baggetta, Stephen Hodges, and Mike Watt, releasing four studio albums in four years, the latest being “Scotch Aicher” in 2021.

The Omaha-based opening band Bad Bad Men will get things started at 8 p.m. sharp.

Tickets start at $15, before fees. Doors open at 7 p.m.

September 29

Chat Pile

Waiting Room

their own unique noise- and experimental-flavored rock music.

Tickets cost $20-$25 before fees for this groovy 8 p.m. show.

Doors open at 7.

September 29

Soirée fundraiser

proach this Mountain West artist takes to sculpture — to explore open structures. Currents of air, movement of light and ambient sounds in nature influence the pierced, latticework metal sculptures for which she is recognized.

Tracing the development of her aesthetic, the exhibition will include sculpture, drawing and wall works.

Linda Fleming: September 29 – Experimenta De November 29 Vacuo Spatio Nebraska Folk Kaneko and Traditional Artists: A Sampling

“Nebraska Folk and Traditional Artists: A Sampling.” The exhibit, which opens Sept. 28 at the Fred Simon Gallery, showcases 10 artists.

The show covers a wide spectrum of media and talents.

Included are works by boot maker Kyle Rosefeld (Cody), nail artist Imagine Uhlenbrock (Omaha), and Scherenschnitte (paper-cutting) artist Vera Ingrid Hanson (McCook), among others.

— This report was compiled by Mike Krainak, Janet L. Farber and Matt Casas.

Fred Simon Gallery, Nebraska Arts Council

Chat Pile is celebrating its fourth year as a band and touring in support of its debut album “God’s Country” (2022), which was released after a handful of extended plays and singles. Chat Pile hails from Oklahoma City and combines elements of noise rock with sludge metal.

Linda Fleming, whose sculpture is featured in the Gene Leahy Mall’s art garden, is the centerpiece of Kaneko’s 10th annual Soirée celebration on Sept.

29 from 6-10 p.m. “Experimenta De Vacuo Spatio,” a retrospective of her 56-year career, will continue through Feb. 2.

Nerver and Nightosphere, both from Kansas City, Missouri, will support the OK band with

The show, whose title translates to “Experiments on Empty Space,” underscores the ap-

A few years ago, the Nebraska Arts Council recognized it was not adequately representing the work of the many folk and traditional artists across the state whose work was rooted in the everyday experience of community.

One result of its new support initiative is

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September 2023

47

F I L M

A Farewell to Film

Oh, They’re Still Making Movies – The Reader Just Won’t Be Involved

by Ryan Syrek

A

s much as I have appreciated the ample warning, I feel like I’ve been breaking up with The Reader and you gorgeous readers for months now. I don’t know how to quit you. For real. Making things even weirder? I’m not really going anywhere.

That is to say, I have decided (for now) to keep using The Reader’s website to post reviews.

You can still find them at thereader.com/culture/movies/ or on the Facebook page (facebook.com/

thereaderomaha) and Twitter (twitter.com/thereaderfilm).

What’s changing? You won’t find them in print, and nobody is paying me. The former is likely to concern no one, and the latter means we’ll see how much I truly love doing this.

And I have. I have so very much loved doing this. I have absolutely cherished being a film critic for this paper. All these years later, my tum-tum still gets full of winged insects when I’m addressed as a credentialed

movie writer. I am aware that I can still be a movie writer, and it may sound silly that the “credentialed” part hurts to lose.

But it does.

It’ll also hurt to lose this community. Being part of The Reader ecosystem has grown me as a person. Goodbye to the great editors and my fellow writers. Goodbye to the people I meet that say, “Oh, I’ve read your stuff.” Goodbye to all the odd, undefined, unrecorded perks that come from having this gig. I have lost track of how many great films I’ve seen because some PR firm got our publication’s name on a list. I’m still open for screeners, you lovely press hacks! I’ll just be reviewing them on behalf of myself, not a charming little alternative news outlet.

Speaking of that, goodbye Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN). It was kind (and maybe foolish) enough to give me an award for Arts Criticism this summer. My failure to defend that title won’t be due to a lack of interest but because I am no longer a candidate. Unless y’all give out “Lone Wolf” awards or

“Last Critic Standing” trophies.

In all seriousness, it is unquestionably the highlight of my film-writing career, even if I’d trade “going out on top” for The Reader not going away.

We don’t get our druthers.

If we did, I wouldn’t be saying my goodbyes. They’re hard, you know? I thought getting started was the hardest part, finding this outlet and my voice. Nah. Having done that, having gone from a verbose doofus to … an older verbose doofus, saying goodbye is infinitely harder than getting going.

And it’s time to go. Someone reverse “The Muppet Show” theme song, as it’s time to turn off the music and shut off the lights. Goodbye to a job that saw me through virtually every adult life change a person could experience. Goodbye to a role that has come to define me.

Goodbye friends. You know where to find me, at least for now.

Unpaid Lone Wolf, signing off (sorta).

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September 2023

We’re not quite in a postapocalyptic dystopia, but I still feel like Mad Max, driving off into an unknown future without Charlize Theron. She’s not here either.

Image: A still from “Mad Max: Fury Road”

SPECIAL SCREENING

Throne of Blood 1957

Dirs. Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor Sep 29 Ruth Sokolof In celebration of Silent Movie Day

Safety Last! 1923

Dir. Akira Kurosawa Sep 26, 6 PM Ruth Sokolof

NEW RELEASES

SPECIAL EVENTS

COMMUNITY COLLABORATION & POST-SCREENING DISCUSSION

Want to be the first to know about what’s coming to the silver screen? Follow Film Streams on social media today to learn more! /FilmStreams

@FilmStreams

@filmstreams

Film Streams

IN COLLABORATION WITH BLUEBARN THEATRE

SEPTEMBER AT FILM STREAMS Cinemateca

IN COLLABORATION WITH

Ruth Sokolof

SERIES

Marighella 2019

FOR SHOWTIMES & TICKETS VISIT FILMSTREAMS.ORG

Dir. Wagner Moura Sep 14 • In Portuguese with English Subtitles

Chile ‘76 2023

Dir. Manuela Martelli Sep 21 • In Spanish with English Subtitles

Argentina, 1985 2022

Dir. Santiago Mitre Sep 28 • In Spanish with English Subtitles

September 2023

49

F I L M

Happiness Is a Warm Bug

‘Blue Beetle’ Is Genuine, Silly, and Genuinely Silly

by Ryan Syrek

F

or reasons that are almost certainly upsetting to unpack, my grandfather loved Westerns. He could watch them from high noon to sunset, barely caring which one was which. Their problematic homogeneity was a comfort to him, regardless of their wildly varying quality. I’m so happy I got “problematic homogeneity” in before The Reader shut its doors.

Anyway, the point is that, like it did once with Westerns, Hollywood is now projectile vomiting a steady stream of superhero material. “Too much!” scream the same people who probably acknowledge recommended serving sizes on Doritos bags. For folks like me, comic book movies are what Westerns were to my grandpa: Varying degrees of pleasing to watch. If “The Flash” and its CGI baby juggling drags the floor, and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” scrapes the ceiling, “Blue Beetle” is hanging out on the couch, just glad to exist.

It’s good that it does, if only because it seems fairly

With superhero content multiplying like Gremlins in a bath house, it is just fine for some to be just fine. Equal parts silly and sincere, “Blue Beetle” just makes it to fine.

IMAGE: A still from Warner Bros. “Blue Beetle” insane that it has taken this long to have a Latino lead in a major superhero flick. “Blue Beetle” commendably centers familial and cultural elements, albeit in a clunky, obvious way.

Vin Diesel’s ears were likely burning, not just because this big-budget action blockbuster kept verbally stressing the importance of family but because

The Rock probably recently twisted them. Their feud is supposed to be adorable, right?

Writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer and director Angel Manuel Soto deliver an origin story that has been repeated only slightly less often than a Taylor Swift chorus: Good kid stumbles into crazy powers and reluctantly

becomes a hero. Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) returns from college to find his dad (Damián Alcázar) and mom (Elpidia Carrillo) are losing their house.

His sister, Milagro (Belissa Escobedo), hooks him up with a cleaning job to help make ends meet. There, he meets evil billionaire Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), who is using an

Other Critic al Voices to ConsideR Alejandra Martinez at the Austin Chronicle says: “For this Chicane critic, ‘Blue Beetle’ is at its best when it grounds itself in real-world stakes and culture, creating a movie that feels thoughtful and lived in. It gets flattened because it has to be both

50

specific and broad in its appeal – an inherently impossible task. For the young Chicane or Latine person seeing this movie, though, they might just feel a little more powerful after recognizing themselves onscreen.”

September 2023

Pablo O. Scholz at Clarín says: “The movie may produce ecstasy, but it’s also true that more is sometimes less, and the jokes and references to La Familia are almost overwhelming.”

Lupe Rodriguez Haas at CineMovie.tv says: “For Latinos, particularly

Mexican-Americans, ‘Blue Beetle’ captures the essence of who we are, which may inspire a few tears. The family dynamic feels very real, and the references will have audiences roaring with laughter such as including El Chapulin Colorado in the mix.”

F I L M alien scarab to create military weapons.

Her niece, Jenny (Bruna Marquezine), is applaudably anti-mass murder. She steals the bug, which accidentally bonds to Jaime and gives him what is basically Iron Man’s suit.

With the help of his Uncle Rudy (George Lopez), who delivers many a joke about bugs crawling in B-holes, Jaime at first tries to find a way to remove the insect before deciding to use its powers to stop evil doers from doing evil. “Oh no, I’ve got weird powers, maybe I should be a superhero” shouldn’t take over two hours at this point, but at least “Blue Beetle” is punctuated with PG-13 body horror and a genuinely silly sense of humor.

A thousand blessings upon comic book content that acknowledges how legitimately goofy it is. The wacky beats, like an assault-weapon abuela and everything Sarandon says or does, are delightful. But dancing on the line between silly and stupid is challenging, with “Blue Beetle” frequently fumbling from the former to the latter. But are you really going to stay mad at a movie that features a climactic fight scene set to Cypress Hill? I didn’t think so.

Am I ever going to watch “Blue Beetle” again? Almost certainly not intentionally. But in the same way that my grandpa watch/slept his Westerns, it wouldn’t bug me to have it on during a lazy Sunday. My first review ever was for “Blade II,” back when superheroes were a sometimes food. Decades later, now that they’re served every meal, I just hope someone somewhere finds what they were hungry for.

Grade = B-

CUTTING ROOM

by Ryan Syrek

Without me, how will you find things like a screening of Akira Kurosawa’s “Throne of Blood?” Read on for the secret to this column’s “success.”

W

hen we first named this column, editor John Heaston kept referring to it as “Cutting Room Floor.” He probably still does. I hate that. The floor is where the stuff that gets cut falls. The cutting room is where the best content gets assembled.

This isn’t the stuff that gets trimmed. This is me preparing you the finest movie nuggets. At least it was. Two more things to preview below for you, and then a final word of advice.

On Sept. 26, Film Streams will be showing “Throne  of Blood” at the Ruth Sokolof

Theater. Choosing a favorite Akira Kurosawa film is a bit like a parent selecting the favorite kid.

But just like my folks when they picked me, I can be brave too and tell you “Throne of Blood” is my A-No. 1 Kurosawa jam. Akira + Shakespeare = Mind Blown. That’s just movie math. The film will be followed by a panel discussion featuring the gang at Bluebarn

Theater, which is dope in its own right. I hope the chat covers things like “What to do if a ghost tells you to kill someone.” To be clear, that’s a reference to “Throne of Blood” and not a personal thing I’m working through.

On Saturday, Sept. 9, you can go to Alamo Draft house and watch Catvideofest

2023. It’s billed as the world’s No. 1 cat video festival. The world’s No. 2 cat video festival is called your smartphone. If you have ever even kinda wanted to see felines doing silly, stupid things on a bigger screen, Catvideofest 2023 is gonna scratch that itch like a cat on the ‘nip. What an age we live in that this is a thing!

is bookmark filmstreams.org and drafthouse.com/omaha?showCalendar=true. Those theaters tend to do fun shit and post it enough in advance to know about it. My special secret for finding all the other small events? I ask Google for movie/film events in Omaha during a specific period.

I rarely have folks send me stuff.

I get almost everything by doing that incredibly complicated step of … googling. See, you don’t need me. You never needed me.

You had the power within you all along. That power, again, is the internet. You got this.

And speaking of crazy events Cutting Room provides like Catvideofest 2023 and  breaking local and national the internet, here is where I tell you that I will be continuing reviews. I won’t be continuing this monthly column. You’ll be OK. Because what you want to do

movie news … complete with added sarcasm. Check out Ryan on KVNO 90.7 on Wednesdays and follow him on X @ thereaderfilm.

September 2023

51

B a c k B e a t

Sounds of Success

Omaha’s Erin Mitchell Takes Ebba Rose to Debut Album, Festival Gigs

by MarQ Manner

E

rin Mitchell has been having a big year. Her project Ebba Rose released its debut album “Ebbs & Flows” to a packed house at Reverb Lounge in June. Then the band performed back-to-back festivals, opening the second day of Maha at Stinson Park and then at GRRRL Camp at Falconwood Park.

The album features nine songs that represent different eras of Mitchell’s life and singing career. Two singles have been released from the album, the piano-based “All I Wanted” and “Hummingbird,” with its epic build to a full-band send-off.

Mitchell began her music career playing in Omaha Blues Society Blues Ed bands before moving on to projects such as Domestic Blend, Magu, and Urn. Ebba Rose started as a solo project before expanding into a full-fledged band. During a phone conversation, Mitchell talked about her beginnings, recording “Ebbs & Flows,” and what is next for her.

“Ebbs & Flows” is available on Spotify and other streaming platforms.

ed singing for Domestic Blend and started playing keys and singing in Magu, and the rest is history.”

Mitchell decided to work on her own music as a solo artist, but not under her own name.

“I started this Urn project that is now Ebba Rose,” she said. “It was a solo project, but I didn’t resonate with the name as much as I used to.

I did release an EP under that name in an attempt to quiet the noise in 2021 and also managed to snag the Singer-Songwriter Showcase award at the Holland Performing Arts Center, which was super sweet. From there, I wanted to reinvent myself musically and kind of start anew, so I started Ebba Rose. It started as a solo project but turned into a full eight-piece band. I guess I just love to be in bands, because I missed the whole band aspect.”

Regarding the origin of the name Ebba Rose, Mitchell said, “It is from

How did Mitchell get her musical start?

“I got a karaoke machine when I was 5,” she said, “but I started really taking it seriously in school. Concert choir, show choir, any choir you could get into. I started doing Blues Ed and I was in a band called Blues Dilemma for four or five years, then the last year we had a tragedy with our bandmate passing away, and we decided to do an album in her honor as she always wanted to do original music whereas Blues Ed was blues covers.

“I kind of started my first original band, Daisy Distraction, and from there we played all over Omaha wherever we could whenever we could. Then I start-

52

an old story that I heard when I was younger. It’s not the exact name.

I kind of morphed it a bit, but I always loved that name when I was young. It just came to me one day randomly when I was wanting to reinvent my sound, really reinvent myself as an artist, and symbolize that with a kind of name change. I have always loved including flowers and names, so that was fitting.”

The recording of the album evolved out of another project she was contributing to. “It was recorded with Cody Rathman,” Mitchell said. “It was in his home studio. We didn’t really get started with mine. I was just tracking vocals for his band Infante Video’s album, but once I heard his production and went through a whole recording session with him, I was like, ‘Wow, can you please record my songs?’ And from there we started recording my songs.

“It was just me and piano and me and guitar, and then he started adding onto it and slowly but surely started forming a whole full-band project. It was a super-awesome recording with him.

We put hours and hours into the album, and it really turned out wonderfully. It was beyond what I could have hoped to imagine.”

Erin Mitchel belts it out during the Ebba Rose album release party for “Ebbs & Flows” at Reverb Lounge.

Photo by Jared Bakewell.

September 2023

There seems to be a theme to “Ebbs & Flows.” “The overall theme is just the ebbs and flows of my life personally,” Mitchell said, “but the listeners’ lives as well.

Obviously, I wrote these songs based on my own life and my own personal experiences. I would say that ‘All I Wanted’ was

one of the more tearjerker ones for me. When I practiced it, it was hard not to choke up at certain parts. I took the lessons I was learning and the things I was healing through and experiencing and just put it on paper and let the songs write themselves. I really wanted them to have a theme about my life story so far.

“With ‘Beggin,’ I included a snippet of one of my old covers that I recorded in my bedroom when I was 10 years old. It was a Justin Bieber cover, but we spliced it up to have that little sample and to have Erin’s intro, and then I included ‘Urn’s Interlude’ to honor that part of my journey … I thought it was fitting to end on ‘Ebba’s Outro.’ It is really cool to orchestrate an album like that, and I do feel very emotionally attached to all of the songs.”

The album release party was in June. “We released ‘Ebbs & Flows’ on a Thursday at Reverb Lounge. I am glad I chose a Thursday as a lot of my musician friends had things going on with their weekend. We sold out of CDs and merchandise, and releasing ‘All I Wanted’ and ‘Hummingbird’ as singles allowed the crowd to already be familiar with those. There were people singing along, and lighters were out waiving back and forth, and it was a cinematic experience like something out of a movie. It was phenomenal to have that kind of support after dedicating the last year or so of my life to it. It still gets to me without words.”

What’s next for Ebba Rose and Mitchell? “… I was hoping to get some sort of tour set up in the next year, but being an indie artist, I am definitely looking to outreach with that because I put out the budget for that myself as I am a wedding photographer here in town. I am looking to perform locally and tour and perform the album. We put a lot of work into it.”

SEASON 14: THE WORLD PREMIERE OF OUR MAGICAL NEW BALLET

plus

momentum The Nutcracker

amballet.org/tickets September 2023

53

H O O D O O

Last Call

This May Be the Final Hoodoo Column, but Your Support Will Help Keep Roots Music Alive in Our Area

by B.J. Huchtemann

I

t’s been 20 years since Dean Dobmeier and Gary Grobeck launched their independent Sunday Roadhouse series. With the focus on Americana music, the series has played various venues before landing with the Waiting Room and Reverb Lounge. The duo celebrates this 20th anniversary year with the return of an audience favorite, charismatic roots-rocker Sarah Borges. The electric guitarist, singer-songwriter and her band hit the Reverb Lounge stage Saturday, Sept. 23. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the show starts at 7.

See sundayroadhouse.com.

The Sunday Roadhouse series continues in the fall with eclectic The Claudettes on Sunday, Oct. 8, at Reverb, 5 p.m. A popular New Orleans’ band with local roots in band member/ vocalist/sax player Joe Cabral Jr., The Iguanas play Saturday, Nov. 18, at the Waiting Room.

Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show is at 8. The band’s combination of Latin styles, Tex-Mex music and the swampy funk and blues sounds of their New Orleans home is a dance-floor-filling favorite.

BSO Presents The Blues Society of Omaha continues to take the role of producer, booking and paying the bands for its weekly blues series. Like all local promoters, BSO needs audiences to show up to afford bringing quality artists to town. Check out the lineup at omahablues.com or facebook.com/bluessocietyofomaha. Shows of note at press time include a show Friday, Sept. 15, 5:30 p.m., at The B. Bar with Kelli Baker, a vocalist

54

from the New York blues scene getting rave reviews. Find out more at kellibaker.com. On Sunday, Sept. 17, 6-9 p.m., Chickenbone Slim & The Biscuits featuring Laura Chavez play an outdoor show at The Rathskeller Bier Haus, 4524 Farnam St. This is a ticketed show. Bringing a bag chair or lawn chair is encouraged. Chicken Bone Slim & The Biscuits are a four-piece West Coast band that lays down swing, rockabilly and roots-rock, featuring 2023 BMA Blues Guitarist Winner Laura Chavez on lead guitar. BSO hosts a special show Wednesday, Sept. 27, 6-9 p.m., at the Waiting Room with guitarist Damon Fowler. On Thursday, Oct. 5, 6-9 p.m., BSO teams with Barnato to present Too Slim & The Taildraggers.

Find all the latest BSO events and related news at facebook. com/bluessocietyofomaha and omahablues.com.

Zoo Bar Blues Lincoln’s historic Zoo Bar has great bookings in September, including the guitar-driven sound of GA-20 on Monday, Sept. 11, 6-9 p.m. The Billboard Blues-charting band features guitarist Matt Stubbs, guitarist/vocalist Pat Faherty and drummer Tim Carman making music inspired by the raw early blues and country of the genre’s originators. American Songwriter calls their music “rough and tumble, relentless blues.”

Bandleader, harmonica star and vocalist-singer-songwriter John Nemeth is up Wednesday, Sept.

13, 6-9 p.m.; Josh Hoyer & Soul Colossal get funky Friday, Sept. 15, 9 p.m.; and blues-rock guitarist Coco Montoya plugs

September 2023

in Tuesday, Sept.

26, 6-8 p.m.

Delmark Records 70th Anniversary I don’t get much of a chance to highlight recordings, but Acclaimed blues vocalist Beth Hart is with this final among the artists playing the new column I wantAstro venue in La Vista this month. ed to mention Chicago’s legphoto courtesy Greg Watermann endary blues label, Delmark, Bastard Sons of Johnny and its 70th anniversary comCash gig at Barnato on Thurspilation released this summer. day, Sept. 28, 8 p.m.

The disc features some of the The Astro is a new indoor most genre-defining recordings venue that is featuring a variety from the label’s past 70 years. of genres, notably blues vocalist It kicks off with “Snatch It Back Beth Hart on Saturday, Sept. and Hold It” by Junior Wells 16, 8 p.m., and Kenny Wayne featuring Buddy Guy when Shepherd on Sunday, Sept. 24, both artists were in their mus7 p.m. Wilco takes the stage cular musical prime, from Wells’ Monday, Oct. 23, 7:30 p.m. See iconic 1965 album “Hoodoo theastrotheater.com.

Man Blues.” (Go get that disc if you don’t have it.) Also feaThanks for Reading tured on the compilation are I won’t be in this space to Magic Sam, Jimmy Dawkins give pointers anymore, so make with Otis Rush and Big Voice the best of social media and Odom, Dinah Washington, venue websites to see what’s T-Bone Walker, Big Time Sarhappening and support what ah, Little Walter with Muddy you can. Support the local clubs Waters, Memphis Slim with that provide opportunities Matt Guitar Murphy and for original artists and quality Jimmy Johnson. You can learn original music. You’ll find a more about Delmark and its curated list of local blues and late founder, Bob Koester, and roots shows on the Blues Society purchase the 70th anniversary of Omaha’s event calendar at anthology at delmark.com. omahablues.com.

Hot Notes

On Sunday, Sept. 17, 8 p.m., Steelhouse presents Parliament Funkadelic featuring George Clinton. See steelhouseomaha.com.

Thanks for reading and for supporting live music. Hopefully, I’ll see you at a venue or on the dance floor somewhere down the road.

C O M I C S Garry Trudeau

JeffREY Koterba

Jen Sorensen

Ken Guthrie From the first and Last issues of The Reader, Omaha weekly & sound...

It’s been the honor working in with My Friend John Heaston FOR 30+ years...

Now I can TRULY say: “see you in the funny papers!” Thanks, John!!! ( Dad, Too! )

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O V E R

T H E

E D G E

A Goodbye and a Modest Proposal An Argument for an Arts & Entertainment Publication Printed Weekly

by Tim McMahan

S

o this is it, my last column written for The Reader.

The first installment of this column was dated Dec. 2, 2004. It focused on a young singer/songwriter named Willy Mason who few if any people remember. More than 600 (700?

800?) installments followed in different iterations, all with the same common denominator — they were published in newspapers run

by John Heaston.

John is an Omaha hero, there is no other word for it. No single individual has done more for independent journalism than John. He’s kept this beautiful paper going longer than anyone thought he could. The Reader is now being put to rest for all the right reasons. Thank you, John, for everything you’ve done for this city and for journalism. Now it’s time to focus on a more important fight, which everyone knows you’ll win.

The demise of another printed newspaper shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has followed the industry’s eradication over the past 20 years with the rise of social media. U.S. newspapers die at a rate of two per week, according to a 2021 report by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. According to the report, 360 newspapers have shut down since the end of 2019, all but 24 of them weeklies serving small communities.

In addition to losing The Reader, we’ve all watched as the once-mighty Omaha World-Her-

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ald continues to dwindle into a thin ghost of its formal self. And while its Husker football coverage remains first rate, among its casualties is its arts and entertainment reporting.

The irony, of course, is that Omaha’s arts and entertainment community is enjoying a much-needed renaissance. We’ve seen hundreds of millions of dollars invested in new performance venues, including Steelhouse, The Admiral and The Astro. There are more music venues now than ever before. Omaha’s arts scene also is in full bloom with new art galleries opening monthly, not to mention the millions going into a remodeled and expanded Joslyn Art Museum. On top of that, Omaha is becoming renowned for its culinary offerings. Restaurants new and old are getting the attention of national food critics.

Now, maybe more than ever, Omaha needs an arts and entertainment publication to not only cover what’s happening, but also to provide a critical voice to tell us what’s worth seeking out.

And so, with apologies to Jonathan Swift, here’s a modest proposal for keeping critical journalism alive in Omaha: We need a weekly printed arts and entertainment publication. This free paper would cover music, art, film, food and theater.

Each issue would include a feature for each section as well as reviews and a curated show/events calendar. In addition, a page would be dedicated to commentary and

September 2023

letters to the editor, because, let’s face it, it’s one thing to see your comments on Facebook and quite another to see them in print.

The paper would be funded by advertising from all these new and existing performance venues, galleries and restaurants (and anyone else willing to fork over some cash), which would also serve as distribution points for the paper, along with other businesses.

The editorial content would be powered by freelance contributors, including some of the writers, critics and photographers who wrote for this very paper.

That team would split whatever money is left after printing and distribution costs were covered.

The paper would start small and grow as needed. OK, but a printed paper?

The key to making it work is to provide content so compelling that people would seek it out and pick it up. But even then, in an age when you can simply scan news on your smartphone, why would people want to read old-fashioned printed words?

The fact is folks are returning to analog media in droves. The growth in vinyl record sales, for example, is no secret, even though music is freely available online. Sales of printed books are also on the rise despite novels being available digitally.

Heck, Barnes & Noble recently announced it’s opening 30 new bookstores in the wake of record U.S. book sales in 2021, according to NPR.

So in addition to those analog examples, what would it take for people to also value a printed weekly publication? Are there enough readers and businesses left to support such a bold initiative? You tell me.

Honestly, a big part of this idea is purely selfish. As a writer, there’s something special and permanent about seeing your words printed on paper. It represents an investment in your ideas much more than seeing those words on a website or in the transient, noisy world of social media.

But more than that, the loss of The Reader is a gut punch to an arts culture that desperately needs an honest critical outlet not only to guide consumers but also to provide feedback to the artists, musicians, chefs, thespians and filmmakers who make it thrive.

AI and ChatGPT may someday replace news reporting, but they will never replace honest, critical writing. Only a human can tell another human what s/he liked or didn’t like, and why.

So goodbye, Reader. Thanks for the memories. Here’s hoping something rises like a phoenix from your ashes for all of us to see, read and hold in our hands.

You can read Tim McMahan’s music and arts writing at his blog website, www.lazy-i.com. Email Tim at tim.mcmahan@gmail. com.

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