THE READER - EL PERICO OMAHA MARCH 2021

M A RC H 202 1 | volU M E 28 | ISSUE 1

The Fight to Change

Social Studies in Nebraska: New State Standards Center Marginalized Voices, But Students Say Education Remains Whitewashed STORY by

LEAH CATES PHOTOS by

Chris Bowling

JOBS: Bills in Unicameral Aim to Increase Minimum Wage DISH: Community Supported Agriculture ART: Fred Otnes: A Collage HOODOO: Facing the Storm FILM: Awards of Advice: How to Fix the Oscars in 5 Simple Steps FILM REVIEW: Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar HEARTLAND HEALING: Winter Water OVER THE EDGE: What Are They Waiting For? PLUS: PICKS, COMICS & A CROSSWORD EL PERICO: Beto: el policía expandillero que reforma a jóvenes de Omaha | ¿Qué abogado necesito si soy inmigrante? | Fotos comunitariaS

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COVER: The Fight to Change Social Studies in Nebraska: New State Standards Center Marginalized Voices, But Students Say Education Remains Whitewashed

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O M A H A

J O B S

Two Bills in Unicameral Aim to

Increase NE’s Minimum Wage

by Alex Preston

I

t has been more than 10 years since the federal minimum wage was increased. On July 24, 2009, it was raised from $6.55 per hour to $7.25. Over the years, it has become increasingly clear to millions of Americans that this wage is inadequate, and now lawmakers throughout the country are working to raise the minimum wage to a living wage.

For Nebraska workers, the last minimum wage increase was much more recent than 2009. In 2014, voters approved a ballot initiative that raised it from $7.25 per hour to $8 in 2015 and to $9 in 2016. It has remained there since. The ballot measure proved to be popular among Nebraskans, passing with nearly 60% of the vote. Prior to this successful ballot initiative, Nebraska’s minimum wage had never been higher than the federal minimum.

State senators in Nebraska’s Legislature have introduced bills this year that aim to gradually increase the minimum wage over the next decade.

The first bill, LB480, was introduced by senators from Omaha and Lincoln, including Ter-

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rell McKinney, John Cavanaugh, Machaela Cavanaugh and Matt Hansen. This legislation, if passed, would increase Nebraska’s minimum wage to $20 per hour by 2032, raising it one dollar per year starting in 2022.

That raise falls short, however, among tipped workers, such as restaurant servers, who are left out. Tipped workers here only receive $2.13 per hour from their employers and must rely on tips from customers to earn a sufficient wage.

Sen. Megan Hunt from Omaha is hoping to give tipped workers a raise with LB122, which would raise their minimum wage to $9 per hour. Under current state law, employers of tipped workers are supposed to ensure their workers are paid $9 per hour if their tips fall short, but Sen. Hunt says her bill is important because employers don’t always adhere to this rule.

Although Nebraska’s Legislature is officially nonpartisan, conservative dominance often makes it difficult for progressive legislation, such as Hunt’s, to make it to the governor’s desk.

Should LB122 fail in the Unicameral, Sen. Hunt has promised she will organize a petition drive to put the issue on the ballot for Nebraska voters to decide.

“If this fails, we will bring this to a vote of the people. And I guarantee you, the people of Nebraska want this,” Hunt told the Omaha World-Herald.

Some of Nebraska’s neighboring states have fallen behind, such as Kansas and Iowa where the minimum wage remains $7.25 per hour.

Lawmakers in Kansas introduced a bill this year that would raise their minimum wage to $15 per hour over the next six years if passed.

Other bordering states, such as South Dakota and Missouri, have surpassed Nebraska’s minimum wage. Currently, South Dakota has a minimum wage of $9.45 per hour, which increases annually to adjust for inflation. In Missouri, the minimum wage is $10.30 per hour, and it will increase to $12 by 2023.

At the national level, the federal minimum wage has come into more intense focus with President Joe Biden taking office. Raising the

minimum wage to $15 was a major component of his platform as a candidate.

Biden signed an executive order two days after taking office that raised the minimum wage for federal employees and contractors to $15 per hour.

For workers in the private sector, however, it is unclear when they might receive a similar raise. The Biden administration hoped to include a $15 minimum wage in the widely anticipated COVID-19 relief and economic recovery package, but according to reports on Feb.18, Biden told a group of mayors and governors that he expects the minimum wage to be cut from the relief package and passed in a later bill.

As lawmakers around the country continue to debate raising the minimum wage, millions of people are struggling to pay their rent and other bills on a wage of $7.25 per hour. These people have waited 10 years for a raise, and the question remains how much longer they will have to wait.

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C O V E R

The Fight to Change

Social Studies in NE New State Standards Center Marginalized Voices, But Students Say Education Remains Whitewashed STORY by LEAH CATES | PHOTOS by Chris Bowling

E

very day in seventh grade social studies is the same for Ángeles Mora Dominguez. PowerPoint slides pass by as she jots down notes from a book that offers praise for Christopher Columbus and suggests some slaveholders were benevolent.

For years, the 13-year-old said, the message from her white social studies teachers and the curriculum they teach has felt clear: White people taught people of color like her to make butter and milk cows. They taught them to bathe and farm. White people showed them how to build a nation from the bottom up.

“They’re trying to push on us that white people are our saviors,” said Mora Dominguez, who attends Norris Middle School in Omaha Public Schools and hopes to enroll in college as a first-generation Mexican-Amer-

ican student. “They … make it sound like everything we’ve gotten is from white people.”

Mora Dominguez’s experience is typical. Conversations The Reader had with half a dozen metro-area middle and high school students reveal a social studies curriculum that centers white men and pushes BIPOC to the margins, if not off the map entirely.

But that has slowly begun to change. A team of 65 educators from throughout Nebraska sat in countless meetings to revise statewide social studies standards that were completed at the end of 2019, and they were intentional in their efforts not to whitewash history.

Curriculums can change

–– in some classrooms they’ve already begun to –– but centering marginalized voices remains an uphill battle, from textbooks that present a glossed-over version of history to teachers who fear saying the wrong thing will put their careers in jeopardy.

While students were more than willing to talk, the schools responsible for implementing state recommendations were not. Requests to interview teachers at multiple school districts were denied or never received a response.

Inside classrooms, students say Nebraska’s efforts to diversi-

Millard North junior Will Ramsey.

Megan Shepherd, Millard West sophomore.

Ebony McKiver, social studies education specialist at the Nebraska Department of Education.

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fy education has yielded mixed results.

“We always learn about the winners. We never learn about the culture that ‘lost,’” said Will Ramsey, a junior at Millard North High School who remembers learning about Native American genocide as a series of displacements.

“These cultures are only [portrayed as] defeated, broken and degraded … I want to hear about different cultures’ successes … and accomplishments, not just how colonizers killed them.”

To combat what Millard West sophomore Megan Shepherd calls sugar coating the brutalities of U.S. history, she and Ramsey joined the Millard chapter of Diversify Our Narrative, a nationwide initiative to promote anti-racist and historically accurate K-12 curriculums. Co-led

by Shepherd and Millard North

C O V E R junior Shreeya Shapkota, the Millard Chapter is building a petition to add anti-racist texts to English reading lists. The chapter’s Instagram page educates more than 1,000 followers on topics ranging from BIPOC in history to debunking the white savior narrative.

Ramsey and Mora Dominguez are also members of What YOUth Can Do, a student-led organization fighting for equity in Omaha schools. In addition to demanding that OPS remove armed officers from schools and offer more mental health resources, WYCD pushes for schools to diversify upper-level classes (honors, AP and IB) and teach Black history, including that of Omaha.

“In every American history class, [the teacher’s] like ‘Black history starts in slavery,’” said Isabel Gott, a senior from Omaha South High Magnet School involved with WYCD. “No it doesn’t. There’s so much to learn, and I’ve been deprived of that.”

Too Many Dead White Males A grandfather of three and veteran of Nebraska social studies education, starting as an OPS teacher in 1979, Harris Payne believes every student down to first graders can grasp concepts like social justice and fairness. When he spearheaded the 2019 revisions, which took place from October 1, 2018, through November 8, 2019, Payne was determined to create more inclusive standards for the next generation.

“Way too much of our narrative in social studies has primarily been about dead white males who oftentimes had a lot of power,” said Payne, who retired from his role as social studies education specialist in late May. “Including groups that have oftentimes been left out of the story is the spirit of [what these] particular standards are trying to do.”

Throughout the process of evaluating and updating standards –– which each core subject area undergoes every seven years –– Payne and 65 social studies educators from across the state worked with representatives from marginalized groups, including the Native American and LGBTQ communities. Over 13 months, college professors, civic leaders, content experts, administrators and members of the general public offered input on multiple drafts.

After undergoing review by the Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center, the Nebraska State Board of Education approved the standards on November 8, 2019.

The new guidelines mandate that, starting in fourth grade, students “analyze and explain multiple perspectives of events in Nebraska, including historically marginalized and underrepresented groups.” In eighth through 12th grade, students should: jj examine historical events from the perspectives of marginalized and underrepresented groups; jj identify how differing experiences can lead to the development of perspectives; and jj interpret how and why marginalized and underrepresented groups and/or individuals might understand historical events similarly or differently.

For example, students may “compare primary accounts by American Indian peoples and American settlers regarding the expansion of the United States.”

Or they can study the Stonewall Riots and perspective of LGBTQ persons.

“We are making a concerted effort to make sure that … our curriculum is inclusive of all people, regardless of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic statuses,” said Ebony McKiver, the new social studies education specialist since Payne retired.

Millard North junior Shreeya Shapkota has always struggled to see herself in social studies curriculum.

That motivated her to co-lead the Millard Chapter of Diversify Our Narrative.

McKiver became a social studies educator because, as a child of color in a predominately white school district in Colorado, she said she longed to figure out more about herself and her history. But she never got those answers in the classroom.

“I didn’t want to continue pushing the same stories that I heard growing up,” McKiver said.

When she was Mora Dominguez’s age, McKiver said she read the epic saga Queen by Alex Haley, which tells the story of the author’s mixed-race grandmother born into slavery. McKiver also began studying U.S. presidents and realizing they made mistakes. Now an educator, McKiver remodeled the social studies website with the passion and curiosity for her discipline that came naturally to her at age 13.

The revamped Nebraska Department of Education Social Studies website provides educators with extensive culturally inclusive material, including resources on anti-racism, the 1619 Project, which suggests the nation’s founding should be marked the same year the first enslaved Africans arrived

in Virginia, the LGBTQ community, and social and emotional learning, which helps students build empathy for marginalized groups.

“I really want students to take a look and say, ‘Why are these [whitewashed] stories being told?’” McKiver said. “And what can we do?’”

“A fundamental flaw”: Why Students Aren’t Seeing Change But that’s where the state’s control stops and the districts’ begins.

Nebraska is a local control state. Although districts must follow the 2019 Nebraska State Social Studies Standards, as well as abide by laws and state board policy regarding social studies (including a 2012 multicultural education law), how institutions implement the guidelines –– in other words, the specific curriculum –– is up to each school district and, to some degree, classroom. Unlike English, mathematics and science, there’s no statewide social studies assessment.

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C O V E R So McKiver can’t mandate that teachers bring specific content into the classroom or review anti-racist resources. A lot of her work amounts to suggestions and recommendations.

Local control is common in the U.S. As McKiver explained, “one curriculum doesn’t fit all” in states where school districts range from small and rural to large and urban.

But local control doesn’t guarantee that all, or even most, classrooms will implement a curriculum that is culturally diverse in the way that McKiver, the Nebraska Department of Education and students themselves envision it. Individual districts (some of which haven’t finished implementing revisions) decide on activities, assignments, textbooks and in what ways –– and, arguably, how much –– to center underrepresented voices.

“Classrooms are where the learning happens,” said Kevin Bower, an associate professor of history at Nebraska Wesleyan University who consulted on the changes. “Teachers are the front line.”

Teachers have a lot at stake.

The Reader’s requests to speak with teachers and administrators at several districts across the metro, including OPS, Millard and Gretna, in addition to Walthill and Umónhon Nation (located on the Omaha Reservation), were either denied or ignored.

A Millard educator and OPS administrator agreed to interviews but had to back out when their districts got involved.

An education coordinator for the Institute of Holocaust Education and former Millard teacher who works with teachers across the state, Kael Sagheer, said delving into topics like genocide and systemic racism in the U.S., which some parents consider controversial, can cause teachers to fear for their livelihoods.

“Teachers … have said to me ‘I weigh [the] risk every day be-

10

cause my students will … talk to their parents,” she said, “‘then their parents talk to the principal, then the principal talks to me, and I may lose my job.’”

Sagheer knows one English teacher who was accused of “bludgeoning her students over the head with the truth” after showing them the film 12 Years a Slave.

Career social studies educator Sonya Stejskal, who teaches in the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s department of history and offered input on the state’s social studies standards, isn’t confident in district administrators’ willingness to defend teachers against parental attacks.

“Usually administrators are trying to be on the safe side and not rock any boats. That really drives me crazy because you should rock the boat,” Stejskal said.

But Stejskal also said these new standards are designed to protect teachers against uneasy administrators. At least in some schools, they seem to be working.

Payne recalled his conversation with a rural educator who expressed gratitude for the standards’ inclusion of LGBTQ communities, about which he can now talk without administrative pushback.

“The state taking the lead in putting marginalized groups into the standards makes a big difference in [supporting] teachers to have courageous conversations,” Payne said.

Not all teachers are equipped to talk about tough topics in the classroom. Tim Royers, who recently began his tenure as president of the Millard Education Association after teaching social studies in Millard for 13 years, is concerned about what he considers a fundamental flaw in social studies educators’ training: the narrow lens of history with which they graduate college.

MARCH 2021

Isabel Gott, a senior at Omaha South High Magnet School, learned about the history of LGBTQ rights through an internship at the Omaha Women’s Center for Advancement.

“Why am I not learning [this] in school?” Gott asked.

“If teachers aren’t [able] to take classes that give them the foundational knowledge to [teach an inclusive curriculum], they’re going to look at these expectations and get frustrated because they haven’t been equipped to do it well,” he said.

“That’s a piece we need to still address.”

Most of the time, these teachers are themselves white.

Neither Mora Dominguez, Ramsey, nor Shapkota said they’ve ever had a social studies teacher of color. Royers, who’s spent more than 20 years in Millard schools, said he’s only ever had one Black teacher.

If kids don’t see teachers who look like them, white educators will remain overrepresented, Royers said. He and fellow Millard educators are recruiting students of color for their district’s in-house education academy. He hopes, six or so years from now, those students will return to Millard as educators. They’ll have to be patient, he said, because this is the first time Millard has prioritized those perspectives. But it’s worth it.

“Unless we have people that are truly, authentically speaking to the different experiences of what it’s like to be in America, we’re not going to fully move the needle,” Royers said.

Learning from a teacher of color impacts how –– and what –– students learn. OPS senior Gott recalled her freshman year history teacher, a Hispanic man who was born and raised in Omaha and attended her high school. Seeing him at the front of the classroom, particularly when he taught Mexican-American history, showed Gott that it’s possible for someone like her to be a strong adult who is proud of their heritage. “[Teachers at my school] understand what it’s like to be a person of color in the United States [and] what it means to be an immigrant,” she said. “It makes me feel at home.”

“Ignore what the textbook is saying” Mora Dominguez is a member of the LGBTQ community; yet, only three of the 936 pages in her textbook, American History, published by textbook giant Pearson, mention LGBTQ issues.

When Mora Dominguez reads about slavery, she finds political deals made by white men –– the Missouri Compromise, the Fugitive Slave Act –– and next to nothing about the lived experiences of enslaved people from the perspectives of BIPOC. So students like Ramsey, Shep-

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C O V E R herd and Shapkota turn to social media.

“I’ve learned more from [Diversify Our Narrative’s] Instagram page than I probably ever have in public education,” Ramsey said.

Shapkota’s teacher did tell his class to “ignore what the textbook was saying” about Christopher Columbus and indigenous populations, but not all teachers are willing to push back against textbooks.

“We mostly read word for word from the textbook, like ‘This is what you need to … remember for the test, and then we’re gonna move on,’” Shepherd said. “The authors of these textbooks are white people getting their notes from white journals.”

Gott said she challenged her book’s whitewashing, and the teacher responded, “I don’t know; that’s just what the textbook says.”

Some educators use textbooks as an opportunity to teach students about the danger of consulting just one whitewashed narrative. When Royers taught, he said he reminded students that there are multiple versions of history and presented them with competing sources that offered radically different viewpoints.

Educators in the Native American community are acutely aware of textbooks’ limitations.

Shelly Stark, Native American liaison for the standard changes, said her former social studies students at Walthill Public School in Thurston County were not engaged in a curriculum that failed to represent them. So she ditched textbooks, instead using novels and other alternative sources that taught U.S. history from an indigenous perspective.

Vida Woodhull Stabler, director of Umónhon Nation Public School’s Language and Cultural Center and Title VI Native Educa-

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tion Program, teaches students about Umónhon culture through immersive experiences, from hand making regalia to playing traditional games.

existing knowledge comes from elective or dual enrollment courses on topics such as African American History –– not from regular classes.

“[Culture is] not from a book.

It’s from … our community members being brought into our schools … You can integrate culture into all aspects of education,” Stabler said. “Our focus has always been a more robust, deeper level of learning.”

Shepherd said that when marginalized communities do come up, it seems like an aside, briefly touched upon for the sake of getting it over with. This tackedon feeling is precisely what educators like Royers want to avoid.

McKiver, Payne and their colleagues likewise don’t believe textbooks prepare students for civic duty. The new standards emphasize inquiry-based learning and the College, Career and Civic Life (C3) Instructional Framework, which challenges students to ask questions, analyze primary sources, think critically and develop conclusions instead of being spoon-fed history from a book. For example, Royers said, students should be able to apply these skills to grapple independently with a news article about the experience of Latinos in the U.S. “That’s really the ultimate litmus test if we’ve done our job or not,” Royers said.

But students insist that historical inquiry still isn’t happening in many classrooms, and if it is, it’s exclusive to electives and upper-level classes, such as honors, AP and IB. Nationally, Black and Latinx students are underrepresented in upper-level classes; for example, 15% of high schoolers are Black, but just 9% are in AP courses. Plus, AP exams are pricey, posing barriers to access for low-income students, who are often BIPOC. Students also say regular classes don’t delve into the experience of marginalized communities. So BIPOC who populate these classes don’t see themselves represented.

Bower, who teaches racial justice to first-year students, noticed that most of his students’

MARCH 2021

“Students can pick up on that in a heartbeat [because] they feel like it’s just this mandatory thing we have to get through,” he said. “Seamlessly [integrating] it so students feel it’s a core part of the historical experience takes time and practice and refinement.”

The new standards work to formalize diversity and inclusion, but until it starts happening in every classroom, students of color will continue to see their communities’ stories erased.

“That’s a way to alienate people,” Sagheer said. “Showing [students] that they are not important enough to be in the literature, to be in the history classroom, to be heard and seen and studied.”

“I don’t know why my school is trying to shield us” For Mora Dominguez, racism isn’t a textbook concept –– it’s everyday reality.

Yet, the racism faced by Mora Dominguez, who said she experienced police brutality at age 12, remains conspicuously absent in classroom curriculums.

“I don’t know why [my school is] trying to shield us from the fact that people are getting killed just because of their skin color,” Mora Dominguez said.

“That’s something that we’re gonna have to deal with, even people of color my age.”

Shapkota, who’s from Nepal, is

asking the same question. When Shapkota told white friends she was being treated unfairly, they couldn’t relate. And they’re not going to better understand Shapkota’s experience at school, where Shapkota said she isn’t represented and the curriculum fixates on past wrongs.

The past has a material effect on the present, Sagheer said. It’s not enough to tell people that America has moved on from its racist history, painting a pretty picture rather than facing the ugly truth.

“There is this inability to look at the shadow side of our country, because then we have to look at the shadow side of ourselves, the icky stuff that we don’t wanna see,” Sagheer said.

“There’s this fear then somehow that makes us lesser than we thought we were as a country.

I happen to think it would make us stronger and better. I think that’s called growing up.”

Educators acknowledged that, while the 2019 changes were a step in the right direction, there remains significant work to be done. Come spring, McKiver said the state plans to review schools’ instructional materials, textbooks and curriculums to identify gaps, some of which may be in multiculturalism.

Meanwhile, students continue to fight. Whether challenging administrators to center voices like theirs or rallying for racial justice on school steps, they’re demanding a curriculum that is historically accurate, culturally inclusive and representative of all students.

“For the past seven, eight years, we’ve heard the exact same thing over and over again.

It’ll be an eye-opener, and it’ll make [students] want to pay attention,” Mora Dominguez said.

“They’re going to be talking about stuff that directly affects them, and not stuff … from white people.”

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by Sara Locke

T

he last year has done a great deal for exposing and demonstrating the weak links in the food supply chain Americans are reliant upon, but that reliance is a relative blip in our collective agricultural history. Prior to our parents’ generation, the word “farmer” didn’t conjure images of hazmat-suited hothouse workers, and “fresh fruit” didn’t come frozen and shipped from the furthest reaches to the local Walmart.

Rather, a farmer was your neighbor who knew they could count on you to buy in as much as you counted on them to provide a bountiful harvest. In fact, for many local Omaha restaurateurs, farmers are the business partners they develop trusted relationships with to provide the freshest,

Signing up for a CSA share is as simple as following a farm website’s link, and picking up your produce means choosing from a list of convenient pickup locations already near you.

My family has loved our Wenninghoff Farms shares for the last nine years, and we have the option of choosing from pickup sites downtown or in Midtown, Rockbrook, Ralston, out west at 156th and West Dodge St. or at the farm in Irvington.

You may not know what you’re getting this week, but you know it’s packed with flavor. most flavorful dishes to their diners. So why should your kitchen be any different?

This month, we’re taking down your doubts one at a

The dirt you can see or the E. coli you can’t?

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MARCH 2021

time and trying to make a farm loyalist out of Omaha’s Readers.

Accessibility An easy answer for why bigbox grocers have become the default for many American families’ weekly grocery run has to do with accessibility. You know what’s going to be on the stands, and you know it has been quality-controlled. You walk in, grab your four identical tomatoes and your pound of bleached baby carrots, and you walk out. But patronizing a local farm has become just as easy, with less risk of accidentally grabbing an assortment of junk food items and running up your bill as you go.

Variety Many question whether they will have access to the same fruits and vegetables they’re able to find at the store, and the answer is a resounding … maybe. It’s true that you’re at the mercy of Nebraska weather, but farmers do everything humanly possible to provide shares reliably. The trade-off comes from the uncommon quality of each ingredient you purchase. You’ll find the richness of flavor varies wildly from store-bought produce, and you may struggle to ever use a waxy commercial bell pepper again after experiencing the difference.

You may also find that your children (or yourself) are not as vegetable-resistant as you thought. Try shucking peas with your kids at the kitchen

D I S H

LOCALLY OWNED DELIVERY CO-OP

When you raise your produce from a seedling, there’s no such thing as an ugly vegetable. table and see how quickly they start snacking on them. Many find they even become loyal to a certain farm and only like cucumbers from one or tomatoes from another.

Not only can your share include a delicious variety of produce, but many farms offer market shares that include meats, artisan cheeses, herbs, honeys, eggs, baked goods, jams and butters, or flowers.

Quality Control We have come to blindly trust that the produce we find at the grocery store is safe, healthy and preapproved for human consumption. How we came to that conclusion is beyond me, as toxic and tainted produce has resulted in countless illnesses, recalls and some mortal injuries. When you pick up your CSA shares, they will likely be covered in dirt and still warm from the sun.

For some, the dirt equates to “dirty.” For me, the dirt means “this box of berries isn’t covered in commercial solvents.”

It’s a personal preference, but I suspect I’m far from alone.

Waste Not If a carrot grows any way but straight on a commercial farm, it’s left in the field to rot. When

the stock in your grocery store produce cooler begins to wilt, it’s instantly chucked. When produce grows a little ugly on a family farm, it goes into an “ugly produce” pile and is sold at a discount. This approach slows the skyrocketing price of food and curbs food waste. It also creates even deeper discounts on fresh, wholesome produce, making it more affordable for families in a bind.

Many food rescue programs rely on this ugly produce to supply fresh food to food banks, soup kitchens, food pantries and programs available to schools and churches in food deserts. Reducing waste cuts costs for us all, provides respite to landfills and creates opportunities for food security programs to continue providing healthful meals to those in need.

Where Do I Start?

While many of us missed the Omaha Farmers Market last year, Local Harvest has made finding your new favorite farm easy! Head to localharvest.org to find a CSA that suits your family. Sign up for full or partial shares and instantly show support to the local growers who keep Nebraska well-rooted in health and prosperity.

USE CODE

GoLoCo

O MAHA

G et Ready O ma ha LoCo is owned and operated by local independent restaurants. The ultimate goal of LoCo is to offer delivery from the best local restaurants in town, provide great service, and enhance the local dining scene. Support local and download our app today.

MARCH 2021

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W PICKS W The highly anticipated Omaha Film Festival 2021 will be both virtual and physical, albeit with limited times and days in the theater. While the festival will run virtually from March 2-14, limited screenings will take place at Aksarben Cinema March 12 and 13.

For regular festival attendees, this means something very special.

For the first time, we will be able to see every film submitted. In festivals past, films ran concurrently in different theaters and it was impossible to see them all. The opportunity to buy into the virtual screenings means you can sit at home and take in all of the entries at your own pace. Just like every year, there are tons of entries, 94 films to be exact.

Ticket options include an All Access Pass for $90, an All Access Virtual Pass for $70 (virtual screenings only) and an All Access Physical Pass for $50 (Aksarben Cinema showings). Go to www.omahafilmfestival.org for info and tickets.

— Paul B. Allen IV

March 12

Through March 17

the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney in September.

Gallery 1516

For details, entry forms and frequently asked questions, visit gallery1516.org or email sara@gallery1516.org.

Act Now!

Gallery 1516 is inviting visual artist submissions through March 17 for its recurring Nebraska Artist Biennial exhibition, set to open in May. Artists living in Nebraska, those who have spent time here as students or artists-in-residence and members of Nebraska-based artists groups are eligible.

Artwork categories include painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, sculpture, ceramics/ pottery, multimedia and student.

A quintet of exhibition jurors will select the works and issue awards for the top pieces in each category. Entry fees this year are covered by the Fred and Simon Charitable Foundation.

Subjects include figurative works, abstracts, landscapes and still life.

Printmaking methods used are intaglio (etching, engraving, aquatint, etc.), screen prints, relief (woodcuts and linoleum cuts) and lithographs.

Free Prints: Prints Free opens with a reception March 12, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., and runs through April 3. The Roberta and Bob Rogers Gallery is located at 1806 Vinton Street and open Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. More information is available at rbrg.org or by calling 402-4964797.

— Kent Behrens

March 12

Celtic Footprint the little gallery | blackstone

RBR Gallery

— Janet Farber

March 2-14

Omaha Film Festival 2021 Online/ Aksarben Cinema

Artworks of note will earn cash awards, and for the first time winning pieces will travel to exhibit at

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Free Art? Who Does That?

and visitors are encouraged to expand their collections by purchasing additional prints.

March 2021

So, what does somebody have to do to get affordable art around here? Well, how does a free, fine art print sound? To promote its new exhibit, RBR Gallery is offering one fine art print to all visitors this month.

The exhibit, Free Prints : Prints Free, opens March 12. The gallery will be giving away prints by local and internationally acclaimed artists. Donations will be accepted,

This March, the little gallery | blackstone will host Celtic Footprint featuring works by mother-andson duo Linda and Chad Leahy.

The gallery, which recently moved to the Blackstone area from its original Benson home, will host an opening reception Friday, March 12, from 7 to 10 p.m.

Linda’s oil paintings on canvas present iconic elements, in landscape and portrait, of the Celtic heritage. Chad is a mixed media artist. His works on paper depict pivotal moments in the life of Cuchulain, the mythic Irish hero.

W PICKS W Chad is a professional designer and received his BFA in painting and printmaking at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

The opening reception is free and open to all. The show runs through May 1. The little gallery I blackstone is located at 144 S. 39th St., Suite 1B. For more, visit thelittlegalleryblackstone.com.

— Kent Behrens

out the month on March 24. The Waiting Room Lounge is located at 6212 Maple St. Visit the Waiting Room’s Facebook page for more details and to reserve your tickets.

tion,visitors must request an appointment by emailing info@baader-meinhof.org. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday from 12 to 6 p.m.

— Alex Preston

— Janet L. Farber

March 19

Ongoing

Place Setting Eye of the Baader Meinhof

March 19

Beholder MaMo Gallery

An Evening with

Refocus Omaha invites you to participate in a citywide visual storytelling project that showcases unique perspectives from our diverse communities. The project, developed by Leadership Omaha’s class 43 in partnership with the nonprofit BFF Omaha, asks citizens to submit photos, with captions, that show their unique perspectives of the community.

Jill Martin & Logan Mize The Waiting Room

lished on Instagram, culminating in a public exhibition and limited publication of a juried selection of photographs in June. Published photographs will be chosen based on originality and creativity, composition and design, unique perspective/story and entertainment value.

Submissions have begun and are free and open to all ages.

Participants are encouraged to submit via instagram.com/refocusomaha.

The exhibition will be held at MaMO Gallery during June 4th’s First Friday art walk, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The MaMO Gallery is BFF’s mobile gallery, located in a converted Mayflower trailer, and for this exhibit it will be located outside the CityLight Arts Project at 56th & NW Radial Highway.

Further information is available at www.bffomaha.org.

Photographs will be chosen by the Refocus team and pub-

— Kent Behrens

The new artist-run venue Baader Meinhof continues to develop its program, offering Coagulation, an exhibition of its inaugural artist-in-residence, Jack Ryan, with an opening scheduled for Friday, March 19.

If you’re a country music fan who has been missing live performances, The Waiting Room has a stellar lineup of country performers throughout the month of March. Whitey Morgan opens the series with an acoustic performance March 3-4, and rising star comedian Darren Knight brings his redneck humor to the stage March 5. Country artist and comedian Rodney Carrington performs March 10-13. On March 19, the husband-and-wife pair of Kansas, singer-songwriters Logan Mize and Jill Martin, takes the stage for an evening of twangy tunes and classic Nashville sounds. The show begins at 8 p.m., and tickets are $35. Rock ‘n roll country group Giovannie & the Hired Guns close

Ryan is an emerging talent from New York City, and this will be his first exhibition in the area.

His pen and graphite drawings, in which a mélange of detailed figures, objects, symbols and gestural marks suggest a kind of theater within the space of a perspectival grid, will be the main feature of the show.

The artist explains “the drawings are a personal artifact where I attempt to grasp the relationship between the physical world of being in space and the events and cultural elements that would appear as certain as that world itself.”

Jack Ryan: Coagulation opens March 19 and continues through April 30 at Baader Meinhof, 1322 S. 6th St. After the opening recep-

March 2021

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Mix Master

“The Day of the Fourteenth,” 1998

Fred Otnes: A Collage at G1516 showcases career of Nebraska artist

by Jonathan Orozco

N

ebraska generally gets a bad rap in art history. If you were to ask a museum professional about famed Nebraska artists, they might only come up with a few names: multidisciplinary artist Ed Ruscha and fiber magician Sheila Hicks, and maybe Paul Chan if they really know about contemporary art.

But there’s another artist who achieved great renown in his lifetime but whose name seems to only survive within niche art periodicals: Fred Otnes.

Gallery 1516 is currently presenting this artist’s oeuvre in a retrospective titled Fred Otnes: A Collage. Organized by the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney,

which tends to emphasize artists from or with a connection to Nebraska, the exhibition focuses on Otnes’ later works.

Born in Junction City, Kansas, in 1925, Otnes expressed an interest in art early on. His family frequently moved around, but it was a period in Lincoln, Nebraska, that set him up for a career as a graphic designer-turned-artist.

In high school, an art teacher noticed his talents and arranged a visit for him to the city’s local newspaper, The Lincoln Journal.

He was subsequently hired and worked after school and during the summer. His work was visual, focusing on cartoons, hand lettering, photography, drawing

and engraving.

His tenure at the newspaper provided him with the language and technical skills any artist needs, skills that are revealed within his collage work in this exhibition. Though Otnes worked as a commercial artist for a few decades creating magazine covers, posters and images for postage stamps, he eventually turned to making art outside of the market — art for art’s sake, so to speak.

Generally speaking, these collage works are small, which is quite surprising since the compositions are commanding and monumental. Primarily coated in sepias and umbers of varying tones, Otnes shows he has a clear preference for muted colors.

When he wants to get flashy by using reds or peaches, he ensures they are not overbearing. His aesthetic choices age his collages gracefully like the faded and weathered pages of an old tome — something he appears to take great pleasure in.

His materials also contribute to this sense of age, sometimes sourcing paintings and figures from other artists, but also from mathematical journals or older books. Otnes frequently juxtaposes a picture next to text or a geometric figure. He occasionally includes dimensional materials, such as dried flowers, textured fabric and even engraved stone, which approaches assemblage (a 3D collage).

“Silver Bird,” 2000

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There is also a direct connection to art history within his works. One collage titled “The

Paris Workshop” alludes to the artists and cultures Otnes respects. The composition follows his standard color palette, with cutouts of historical paintings and architectural facades placed throughout.

To the center-right is a cropped cutout of a painting made by Diego Velázquez in 1653 named “The Infanta Maria Theresa aged 14.” At the bottom left is a triumphal arch, which is a type of monumental structure associated with ancient Rome. Toward the top is a horizontal band of architectural drawings.

What are we supposed to make of all this? It feels like a reexamination of canonical European art history and acts like a claim to art historical lineage, one that Otnes might have felt he was working within. Though, on a lighter note, collages like these are fun and lighthearted for art historians. Otnes might be asking them: “Well, how many of these images do you remember from your art classes?”

Other works are much more symbolic with their meaning, presenting narratives with recurring motifs and images. For example, a work titled “Silver Bird” is composed of a simple textured composition. The majority of the collage is non-representational, with the only figure being a relaxed bird perched on a beam constructed out of paper strips.

What looks to us as a very simple collage has been imbued with meaning by the artist. Birds

ART

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“The Paris Workshop,” 1990 are a common motif for Otnes that represent creativity. They could also be taken as symbols of freedom and being unbound by the world. In this work, the bird is not caged, nor is it ready to take off flying.

All this is complicated with images of clocks toward the bottom of the composition. What could these cutouts mean? They could symbolize time, so Otnes may be expressing a desire to not waste time doing mundane tasks, communicating to his viewers that we should focus on what really matters in life.

The collages presented in this retrospective are only a primer for what Otnes has crafted. The

accompanying catalog offers a deeper insight into his techniques and historical influences and is definitely worth a read.

Otnes died in 2015 in Westport, Connecticut, at the age of 89, far from his Midwest roots.

We can only speculate if he remembered his time in Nebraska fondly.

Fred Otnes: A Collage will remain open until April 11 at Gallery 1516, located on 1516 Leavenworth St. Gallery hours range from Friday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. by appointment. Visitors need to wear a mask and follow social distancing guidelines. For more information, visit gallery1516.org.

OPS has surplused over 50 busses, trucks, 8 vans and we will be selling them at auction. This will be an online only auction and you must have a valid credit card to register.

Payment will be taken online and all paperwork will be delivered at pickup 3/18 & 3/19 from 9:30 to 1:30pm.10% buyers fee will be added to your final purchase price and everything sold as is/where is.

There are four hundred lots of office furniture, chairs & desks plus more up for auction as well. Check out times for those lots are March 15th, 16th & 17th 9:30am to 1:30pm.

Great Plains Realty Auction Co www.gpsold.com Randy Fleming CAI, 402/210-4885

MARCH 2021

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H O O D O O

Facing the Storm Curtis Salgado’s new record, Damage Control, uncannily reflects the pandemic year even though he completed it in the winter of 2019.

by B.J. Huchtemann

“I

was on the island of Guam when COVID had really hit the USA -- March 11,” Curtis Salgado recalled in an email interview. He was performing with Alan Hager for a gig they’d accepted in February.

“It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that everything was going to stop,” he said.

As the crisis unfolded, Salgado said he realized some of the songs on his new record were relevant to what was happening.

He shared this with Hager, who responded: “Curtis, you’re now the Nostradamus of the Blues.”

“This is an Accident,” Salgado stressed.

While the songs may seem to speak to the events happening today, “the songs are pertaining to me,” Salgado said.

“Because I’m in my 60s and with all the politics and the media pounding us every day, with the shenanigans of our [former] president. Plus the Internet, Facebook

and the division of our country, etc., etc. It was already crazy before the pandemic. It was the perfect storm brewing.”

“Life is Damage Control,” he explained by text message. “Life is Finite. Better grab it Now. That’s where I was coming from, and now it’s all so surreal.”

The name of the new disc, which dropped at the end of February but was actually completed in 2019, is Damage Control.

“Alligator Records scheduled it to be released on June 26, 2020.

I was looking forward to coming out and being on the road to support it. Hell, yes! Let’s party!!!

Damage Control has been on the shelf for a full year…Ouch!!!,” Salgado wrote by email.

“I started writing songs for it in 2017,” Salgado noted. “I write stuff all the time, so some of the songs have been sitting on the shelf for a while. One of them, called ‘Hail Mighty Caesar,’ I wrote back in the 1990s.”

That track is a zydeco-inflected romp. Another song, “Always Say I Love You (At The End of Your Goodbyes),” is a soul-tinged, piano-driven ballad that contemplates the heartfelt ties between friends and the surprise of suddenly or unexpectedly losing them. The song is made even more poignant by all of What started out as a record reflecting Curtis the losses so many Salgado’s own life turned into a recording have endured that also speaks to the pandemic year, which during the panhappened after the record was finished. demic.

Photo credit: Jessica Keaveny

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Salgado wrote or co-wrote all but one of the tunes and produced the record.

“I deliberately set out to write a rock ‘n’ roll record of all original songs. My kind of rock ‘n’ roll.

And I honestly didn’t think Alligator would accept it,” Salgado said of the project. Blues label Alligator Records tends to focus on more traditional blues music.

“But Bruce [Iglauer, label president] is cool and he loved it, and the staff loved it. And I’m lucky to have them back me.”

Salgado became an Alligator Records artist with his 2012 release, Soul Shot. He has been a professional musician since his teens and is a multiple Blues Music Award winner, including five wins for Soul Blues Male Artist of the year and the prestigious B.B. King Entertainer of the Year Award in 2013. See the Blues Foundation website at blues.org for more details. His roots are in soul and blues, but he takes delight in all kinds of music. A diehard music fan and music history buff, the production of the tracks on Damage Control takes listeners on a musical road trip from soulful gospel (“The Longer That I Live”) to Louisiana rhythms (“Truth be Told”) to echoes of ‘60s harmony groups (“Oh For the Cry Eye”) to a vibey stomp (“The Fix is In”).

Salgado said he used three studios with three different rhythm sections to record the album. He started in Nashville in 2018 and moved on to San Jose and the Studio City, Calif. He also did a guest artist session in Lafayette, La., with zydeco performer Wayne Toups. “Of course the musicians are the cream of the crop of America, which is why I could pull this off,” he said.

Damage Control hit Feb. 26 on Alligator Records. To find out more, look up Curtis Salgado at alligator.com or visit curtissalgado.com.

Thursday Blues The Blues Society of Omaha’s long-running Thursday 6-9 p.m. shows continue at Stocks ‘n’ Bonds. Daddy Mac & The Flack are scheduled Thursday, March 4; Travis the Band is up Thursday, March 11. Kansas City’s Scott Moyer Band and another K.C. group, The Old No. 5s, play Thursday, March 18. The rest of March is still shaping up. Visit facebook.com/bluessocietyofomaha for updates and last-minute changes to the schedule. Looking ahead, singer-songwriter Randy McAllister takes the stage. He released a new disc, Paperbag Salvation, in December 2020.

Hot Notes Lincoln’s historic Zoo Bar continues to offer Zoo Bar +Plus Patreon memberships to help support the bar during the ongoing pandemic and to offer members special perks now and in the future.

Check out patreon.com/zoobar for more information. As of this writing, the Zoo has resumed its Zoo Bar House Band shows on Monday nights, currently just the first Monday of each month.

For details and updates visit facebook.com/zoobarblues.

Other local venues still offering live roots music include The B. Bar, facebook.com/theb.baromaha, and jazz club The Jewell, jewellomaha.com. Check their websites and Facebook events listings for updates on performance offerings.

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very becoming Seven make good impreSSion in g1516’S firSt ‘emerging artiStS’ group exHibit

By Kent Behrens at the former’s location at 16th and Leavenworth.

Amplify Arts’ Program Director Peter Fankhauser offered this as the venue’s definition: “Artists in the early stages of their creative development, with 2 to 10 years of generative experience, a focused direction and goals, a developing artistic “voice,” who have yet to be substantially celebrated within their field, the media, or funding circles.”

VIEWABLE IN PRINT ONLY

TalberT Reflection of PoweR, 2019

Searching the term on the web only confounds the issue; it appears that arts writers and curators are in little agreement about this somewhat new and seemingly overused label. What they do agree on, mostly, is these artists evolving presence and reputation.

The exhibit, which takes good advantage of G1516’s excellent space, features the work of seven local contemporary artists at varying levels of experience and renown.

Gallery 1516’s Assistant Curator Suzi Eberly tapped into Amplify Arts extensive roster to serve as guide through the forest of those transpiring from unknown to known.

Together, they assembled a group of local talent, as described in the show’s accompanying pamphlet, “that reexamines and rewrites traditional artistic narratives.”

One possible enlightenment is the recent collaboration of Omaha’s Gallery 1516 and the art center Amplify Arts which resulted in an exhibit, appropriately titled Emerging Artists, which opened Sept. 13

Gallery Director Pat Drickey said the show was “put together as a kind of precursor and complement to the upcoming Spring 2021 Biennial.” In addition, it satiates the recent virus-induced dearth of art

H

ave you ever found yourself asking “What exactly is an emerging artist?” Is it as obvious as it sounds or is there more there than meets the eye?

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Neil Griess BluRRed landscaPe, 2019

shows; group shows have always been a good way to show more work to more people.

Prior to the completion, Eberly moved away, but still consults with the gallery. Subsequent curation and installation was then taken up by the staff at 1516. This transient collaboration yielded a group of seven artists at different stages of their careers: Camille Hawbaker Voorhees, Shawnequa Linder, Jenna Johnson, Neil Griess, Tom White, Patty Talbert, and Anne Dovali. Depending on your frequency of gallery visits in the area, a few of these names may be new to you, and

INTRIGUING, ISN’T IT?

OCTOBER 2020

shawNequa lindeR scotch and soda, 2020

F I L M

Awards of Advice

How to Fix the Oscars in 5 Simple Steps

by Ryan Syrek

E

veryone has a line from a movie or TV show that they always repeat, despite no one around them getting the reference, right? For me, it’s a statement by a young Timothy Olyphant, whose wood was not yet dead, in the quasi-cult-classic film Go. Olyphant explains to a young Katie Holmes, who had yet to Cruise a Tom, why he is compelled to tear the Family Circus out of the cartoon section of the newspaper. “I hate it, yet I’m uncontrollably drawn to it,” the future Raylan Givens says.

Forgive the long preamble, but does that not perfectly explain our collective relationship with the Academy Awards?

We could, as Holmes suggests in that scene, just ignore the Oscars. We have no problem doing that with the Golden Globes. Despite protestations otherwise, we do (by and large) care about this other stupid, frustrating, nearly-always-wrong, self-celebrating nonsense.

Instead of pretending we don’t, here are five simple ways to fix both the ceremony itself and the quality of the awards doled out. I’m not saying the Academy has to listen to me, but to paraphrase a Matthew McConaughey who had yet to all right his all rights, “It’d be a lot cooler if they did.”

Step 1: Quota Pounders

The first problem is the Oscars already has its very own branded hashtag. April Reign introduced #OscarsSoWhite six years ago, before President Obama’s racism-ending tenure was even up. At that time, the Academy membership was 92% white and 75% male. That’s a far cry from the 84% white and 68% male it is now.

Of course, by “far cry,” I mean that minor shift should make everyone weep in frustration.

Not that any other event has stormed the capitol of our minds, but it’s pretty obvious that white dudes kinda have a thing about surrendering positions of power.

Unless the Academy actually does follow through on banning every Harvey, Donald and Joss who deserves a booting, the bulk of folks voting on nominations are still going to reward folks who look like themselves.

So make a new rule that says if all nominees are white men, the highest vote-receiving non-white man gets the nod over the lowest of the five vote-receiving white men. Don’t like it? Tough. If you weren’t racist, quotas would only be how Ben Affleck pronounces “quoters.” The rule can be written to specify that all the can-

22

didates can’t be from one race or the same chosen gender, depending on the category. We’d never have to know whether the rule kicked in or not, as Hollywood is pretty fantastic about keeping secrets.

Is this ideal? No. Is this the best way to guarantee the bare minimum amount of diversity? Short of Hollywood suddenly being filled with better people, yes.

Step 2: Stunt Some Growth

The second problem with the Oscars everyone points to bothers me slightly less. Complaints that “popular movies don’t win awards” are silly because those movies win the only awards that matter in this country: monies! Still, if you want people to care if something wins, they have to either really love or really hate the things nominated, am I right American electorate?

Instead of “Best Popular Movie” or whatever nonsense token award was going to be used to bait normies into watching rich Hollywoodians metaphorically French kiss each other for four hours, add some long overdue categories that people would love: Best Stunt Work, Best Comedy and Best Comedic Performance. That last one should not be split into gender-based subcategories but follow the rule from that suggestion above (meaning it can’t be five folks of the same gender/race).

Not only would this capture more popular films, these absolutely should have been awards already since forever. Inviting more funny people to be in your ceremony is just smart, and comedy is harder than drama. Don’t believe me, imagine Jared Leto trying to make you laugh on purpose. Stunts have long been an art form that people have literally died doing to further the field. To my knowledge, the Academy has yet to lose a costume designer in a tragic hemming accident. These categories fix the popularity problem, and they represent doing the right thing, which is probably why they haven’t gotten awards yet, right Spike Lee?

Step 3: Murder the Montages

Now that we’ve fixed the diversity and popularity issues in just two steps, let’s solve the ceremony’s issues with the next two. First up, kill the montages. At least two or three times during every Oscars broadcast, they roll out a long series of film clips about some random theme. I don’t know what brainiac watched YouTube once and thought “supercuts” were the key to the Academy’s salvation, but stop it. Don’t. Don’t do this anymore. It’s dumb and bad.

MARCH 2021

While we’re at it, murder everything that doesn’t work. Hire a director who is talented enough to read the room (and Twitter) when a Believe it or not, the Academy winner is speaking. If they suck, wrap ‘em up, Maestro.

Awards don’t have to be terrible!

If they are killing it, have the We’re just five changes from having conductor bury that baton. them suck less.

It’s less about the weight of the award and more about The point is, stop thinking of the show the flow of the show, ya dig? We’ve seen as being about what gets awarded. That is rambling Best Actor acceptance speech- important, but we can get that informaes that deserved to be shorter than that tion on the Internet or via a newspaper winner’s on-set patience. We’ve seen with the Family Circus removed from it. funny, moving reflections cut short because See how I tied it back in there. Maybe the someone pre-decided that nothing the Best Academy should call me…

Live-Action Short Film winner says could Step 5: Actually Do the Work possibly be cool.

Now that the ceremony and nominees Ultimately, it’s not about trying to are fixed, here’s a solution for the Oscars as make the ceremony shorter. People love to bitch about how long it takes, but nobody a whole. And I’m going to take off my flipwould be complaining if they were having pant, sarcastic hat and put on my serious, a good time. Just like the movies they cel- no jokesies hat. I have and will continue to ebrate, a shitty film can be 90 minutes and argue for the Academy’s potential. Film is feel like the director’s cut of Das Boot. A the dominant artistic medium of this era. good one can be four hours and feel like Imagine an organization that takes that the director’s cut of Das Boot. Sorry, I liked responsibility seriously. Imagine a group the director’s cut of Das Boot. The point that fights for underheard voices, that is, ignore the clock-watching and start celebrates new artists, that spreads the trimming the stuff that’s lame and giving gospel of cinema all year round.

I am aware that the Academy has more time to what isn’t. Speaking of what events and outreach. Can you name what isn’t… those are? I can’t without looking them Step 4: Make a Spectacle up. The biggest and best way to improve The big problem with the ceremony is the awards that they give out is to make that you can really get the same general the Academy itself something more noble effect by being disappointed while read- and commendable than it currently is. ing the list of winners the next day. Not I joked earlier about kicking out abusive having a host at all is so dumb that I’m monsters, but why not make members confident someone in the 84%/64% came adhere to a high moral standard? Why up with it. Find someone funny, smart and not find a way to screen movies for undertalented and let them actually do enter- privileged communities? Why not stage taining shit. high-profile events for the winning films Don’t just have famous people read after the awards are over? typical award show patter. Put them in If these things are currently being interesting, unusual positions. Have them done, it isn’t on a level that rises to nasing. Have them do sketches. Something, tional attention or structured enough to anything, that actually uses the talent that make a difference. If the first four suggesis getting more wasted than the talent will tions are simple steps, this final one is an be immediately after the show. overall call to arms. Get angry that “The Instead of that boring thing where some- Academy” is said in a derisive, mocking one super famous comes out and reads a way. Become the champions for this speboring synopsis of the Best Picture nominee, cial, important form of art that it deserves. have folks not already in the cast act out a If you need more details, have one of scene. When the Best Stunt Work category your people get a hold of my people. And is added, have stunt people do something by “your people” I mean a famous movie on stage. Look, I shouldn’t have to come up director like Taika Waititi or performer like with all these ideas. I’m a local film critic in Tatiana Maslany, and by “my people,” I Omaha, Nebraska. You have access to people mean me. You’re welcome in advance. so creative that they don’t have to have other jobs to supplement the job where they get to be creative.

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Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is Stupid (in a good way)

by Ryan Syrek

I

n the before times, a certain kind of moron was harmlessly endearing and not treasonously dangerous.

Barb (Annie Mumolo) and Star (Kristen Wiig) are that type of moron. They have been sorely missed.

Their feature debut, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, is flagrantly idiotic and intentionally nonsensical, in what feels like as close as we’re legally allowed to get to a cult classic these days. Director Josh Greenbaum’s film is the rarest of modern comedies, in that it is actually funny. But also in that its big jokes kinda flop, while nearly every single little beat hits. For example, prepare to cackle at the whispered refrain of a single word: “Dumbledore.”

Barb and Star are from Soft Rock, Nebraska, a town you know is made up because Sam and Dean never killed a vampire there on Supernatural. When they get unceremoniously shitcanned, the ladies decide to go on vacation to Florida, which even meth-using alligators will tell you is unwise. Once there, the duo gets debauched with Edgar (Jamie Dornan), who happens to be the pawn of a mad scientist (also played by Wiig), who intends to kill thousands using weaponized mosquitoes.

The simplicity of chatty middle-aged rubes cutting loose on vacay is at total odds with a plot device that feels like a vestigial tail from the Austin Powers series. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as the disconnect adds a quasi-hallucinatory vibe that excuses all non sequiturs and lets the titular goofuses goof their asses off. Wiig and Mumolo, who also wrote the script, deliver the kind of

hard-labor funny that looks effortless.

Watching them lie to each other about turtle encounters is more riotous than any of the big set pieces, which barely beg a chuckle.

Dornan can’t keep up really, but who could possibly match pace with the women behind Bridesmaids? Presumably, he was strategically snagged by a claw from amid a pool of hunks because he is forever unencumbered by the very concept of shame, after the Fifty Shades trilogy. The remainder of the supporting cast are given more cameos than subplots, save for Damon Wayans Jr., whose character simply must have worked better in theory.

Speaking of theorizing, the reason Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar works, but something like (gestures to Adam Sandler and friends’ last decade of work) doesn’t is elusive. Maybe it’s that watching two proudly middle-aged characters who are women — and whose idiocy skews toward kindness and whose horniness feels wholesome somehow — hits different? Or maybe it is as simple as the fact that the film goes out of its way to conceive of an environment and plot circumstances that can’t possibly be construed as having any real-world implications.

Who cares? All that matters is this overstuffed SNL sketch is a nonstop giggler, filled with quotable nuggets and gleefully dorky. In the dead of a uniquely hellish winter in which vacations are ethically impossible, Barb and Star provide the getaway we all need.

Grade = A-

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MARCH 2021

23

F E A T U R E

Last Responders Comfort Others, While Managing Their Own Grief

by Lindsay Wilson

W

hen Tom Belford’s mother died in May, her family was faced with the impossible task of limiting her funeral to 10 people. Belford, who is the owner and funeral director of John.

A Gentleman Mortuaries and Crematory, recalled the difficult months leading up to his mother’s death.

“From March until May nobody was allowed in the building, and she was on the second floor. So we couldn’t go up to the window or anything,” he said.

The end of a life is a difficult time under any circumstances, but COVID-19 has made grieving even more difficult.

“COVID is taking people suddenly, and it’s affecting the families that have suffered, that go through a death at a time where maybe they shouldn’t,” Belford said.

Tom Belford Photo provided by John A. Gentleman Mortuaries and Crematory.

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March 2021

Belford said in many cases families are losing people who are in their 50s and 60s due to complications from the virus.

“We’re here to help them make that first step back to a normal life after suffering a loss,” he said.

John. A Gentleman has seen a steady number of virus-related deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, from March or April through today. Though numbers in Omaha aren’t what New York City or cities in California are seeing, deaths have risen from this time last year, according to last responders such as Belford.

Though the increase in business has been a change, the way Belford and his staff handle virus-related deaths has stayed the same.

“We practice something called universal precautions.

We treat everyone as if they had COVID.” These precautions, which include personal protective equipment used for both funeral directors and the deceased they are working with, have kept Belford’s staff safe since the beginning of the pandemic.

In the February Reader (issue 12, pg. 24), the author of the Kremer Funeral Home profile was incorrectly listed as Lindsay Seldera. The author’s name is Lindsay Wilson. Our apologies for any confusion.

F E A T U R E “We don’t treat anybody differently because they had COVID,” he said.

While the practices in caring for the deceased haven’t changed, funeral services have changed, in some cases dramatically, due to the virus.

“The biggest changes we see in the services is the social distancing,” Belford said. “For a while, the services were limited.”

Many churches and chapels continue to limit the capacity of funerals for everyone’s safety. In response to this, John. A. Gentleman has broadened its focus to include videocasting of services for loved ones who are unable to make it to the service.

“Before this started, we had one or two cameras for filming services,” Belford said. “We have six or seven now.”

Recorded services are helpful to many family members, but one important aspect of support is still missing.

trol. In March and April, some families planned to postpone services until summertime. But those plans were pushed back, too. Some families are now pushing memorial services to summer 2021.

“Everybody’s pushing things back,” Belford said.

“Hopefully the shots will come in and everybody will get vaccinated.”

Fortunately, Belford and his staff are currently on a waitlist for vaccinations and hope to receive their first shots in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, Belford is more careful to protect himself and his family from the virus than the average person.

“I wouldn’t say I’m freaked out, but I would say that I’m cautious.” Belford said. “I’m very cautious about where I go and what I do. I have a big bottle of sanitizer in my car.”

“The families,” Belford explained, “they can’t socialize and get the support from their friends. And that’s probably the biggest disappointment families will see. Our interactions are the same. The care we give them is the same. But the care they get from their friends is different.”

Being a funeral director is a tradition that has passed down for three generations in Belford’s family. While the virus has changed the way he conducts his services, one tradition that remains is the mortuary’s memorial plantings at Lauritzen Gardens, which Belford said is part of the service for every funeral. But even that has been altered slightly. The dedications are now posted online.

Limiting social contact in a time of grief also directly curtails the level of support families would normally receive at the funeral and beyond. John A. Gentleman had to pause its bereavement programs due to the virus, though they recently started back up.

The coronavirus has rendered many aspects of life a moving target, and for last responders, more changes are likely to come. However, Tom Belford is prepared to continue to adapt to support families even as his own family mourns their loss.

Many families are postponing memorial services for their deceased loved ones until after the virus is under better con-

“No matter what happens to people, we’re here to help them,” he said.

March 2021

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I N

M E M O R I A M

Monte L. Kruse July 12, 1955 – February 15, 2021 The Omaha art community and the Old Market are mourning the loss of one of their originals, fine art photographer Monte Kruse, who died unexpectedly Feb. 15 at the age of 63.

Kruse was known variously as a bon vivant, raconteur, hard worker, friend, confidante and mentor. Especially among downtown’s late night denizens, he was the tall and magnetic ‘Mayor of the Old Market.’ It seemed that anyone who ever encountered him came away with at least a good story and at most a great friend.

Kruse earned his weekly paycheck in the hospitality industry, working sometimes unfashionable hours as doorman, bellman and valet. He communed enthusiastically with people of all ages and stripes and was as generous in sharing his passions as he was with his apartment as a much-needed crash-pad. He lived simply but fully, and his personal journals were filled with curiosity, poetry and anticipation of each new day.

While much more may be shared of how Kruse touched many lives, including this writer’s, not enough is said of him as a photographer. A graduate of Creighton University who took inspiration from Fr. Don Doll, he began a career as a freelance photojournalist.

His travels took him from photo-essaying a couple coping with severe physical handicaps in Sheldon, Iowa, to an AIDS hospice in St. Paul to Los Angeles’ skid row, to Israel, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The published portraits of which he was most proud included sittings with artists Louise Bourgeois and George Segal, director Sydney Pollock, and writers Studs Terkel and Mike Royko, among others.

It is as a photo artist that Kruse is better known in Omaha. In his black-and-white work with nude models, he transformed the genre into a film noir embodying both sensuality and storytelling. His first collection placed figures in casual, but intimate settings. The second, more dramatic series, Earth, matched the physicality of his models with the intense labors of agrarian life. “I’m photographing without safety nets,” he told The Reader in 2010.

Turning to color photography, Kruse began haunting Hummel Park, creating a series of images focused on found moments in nature, where the tracery of people’s activities in its secluded corners was measured by the detritus left behind. In a notable departure, these were printed on canvas, providing a provocative if not controversial aesthetic shift from traditional photographic processes.

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March 2021

Just last year at the Garden of the Zodiac Gallery, he debuted a new group of photographs in the radically underappreciated exhibition Night Light (except by the Reader’s annual A-list, which cited it among the best of 2020), and was at work on Painterly, a book of their collected images at the time of his death. Over the course of three years, Kruse had photographed downtown and the Old Market from his bicycle in the wee small hours — often in the worst weather — capturing an eerie stillness and sublime moments amid after-hours storefronts, street-lit exteriors, fogenshrouded corners and rain-swept pavement. A throughline in all his work, Kruse’s attention to available light — the photographer’s paintbrush — made the magic.

At the time these images were exhibited, they seemed a portent of the pandemic that would quiet our city streets.

They are made all the more poignant by Kruse’s passing; the Old Market is that much emptier without him.

A celebration of Kruse’s art and life will be scheduled for later this year. Please watch The Reader for updated information. written by Janet L. Farber

I N

M E M O R I A M

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c r o s s w o r d

Quiet Onset

AnswerS in next month’s issue or online at TheReader.com

I can’t hear you.

by Matt Jones

Across

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1. Life force, to an acupuncturist

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4. One of the Three Musketeers

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10. Consumer protection gp.

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3

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15. “Dog Barking at the Moon” artist Joan

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16. Magazine whose website has a “Find a Therapist” feature

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35. A few feet away 36. Greek consonant 38. Happy fun Ball?

42. Code where B is -...

25 29

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43. Some TVs

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47. Frayed

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34 39

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51. “Wheel of Fortune” action

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19. “Away!”

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48. Ecological community 50. “Be My Yoko ___” (Barenaked Ladies song)

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20. Stunned state

31. B equivalent, in music 34. Contrite phrase

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18 20

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6

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13. “___ Wiedersehen!”

14. Like the opening letter of each of the four longest answers

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52. Eight bits, computerwise

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53. One side of the Urals

21. How hair may stand

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22. Maritime patrol org.

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25. “The mind ___ own place ...” (John Milton) 26. Offer on eBay

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54. Address abbreviation

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28. Japanese grills 6. “It was ___ blur”

32. “Common” chapter of history

47. “Fun, Fun, Fun” car in a ‘60s hit

65. “Bill ___ Saves the World”

33. Flavor on a German schnapps bottle

49. British mil. decorations

66. Hastily arrive at, as a conclusion

7. “Feed me or I’ll knock your drink over”

51. Breezes (through)

67. Celebrity chef Martin

8. “Splendor in the Grass” Oscar winner

37. Rank between marquis and viscount 39. Bell or whistle?

40. “Peter Pan” henchman 41. Device that records respiration

52. Scrooge’s comment 55. Filmmaker Ephron 58. Math conjecture regarding a quadrilateral inscribed in a circle

44. Went nowhere

62. “I identify,” in online comments

45 Tightly cinched

63. Ear ailment

46. “How We Do” singer Rita

64. Baseball stat

Down

9. Piglet’s home

1. Pen parts

10. High-end hotel amenity

2. Period of quiet

11. Fiber-rich cereals

3. Haunted house challenge

12. “Cheers” bartender Woody

4. Hearth leftover

15 Philosophies that regard reality as one organic whole

5. Brazilian beach city, briefly

17 Lettuce variety

18 “___, With Love” (Sidney Poitier movie) 23 Golden State traffic org. (as seen in an Erik Estrada TV show) 24 Philbin’s onetime morning cohost 25 “It’s Shake ‘n Bake!”

“And ___!” (old ad tagline)

59. “Boardwalk Empire” actress Gretchen 60. Battleship score 61. That, in Madrid © 2021 Matt Jones

AnsweR to last month’s “Must Be ‘21 to Enter”

26. Pager noise 27. Persian Gulf country 29. Arctic floaters 30. Burning

March 2021

27

C O M I C S Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau

which deaths matter? by Jen Sorensen

28

March 2021

TED RALL

H E A R T L A N D

H E A L I N G

Winter Water

by Michael Braunstein

T

om Brady just won his seventh Super Bowl. And what I find more astonishing than that is something else I learned about him. Reportedly, Brady’s 2017 book about his health regimen, The TB12 Method, advocates drinking half your body weight in ounces of water each day. So for a 200-pound guy that’s 100 ounces a day: less than a gallon of water. (Can we still use the word “guy”? Is that politically OK? I dunno.) Brady goes on to say that he drinks 300 ounces on days he exercises. That’s more like 2.3 gallons daily, a lot of water.

Brady got as much criticism from conventional “nutritionists” for his water regimen as he did from pundits for his MAGA hat in the locker room back in 2016. Both salvoes were unhinged. While I don’t claim to know what is the correct or safe amount of water to drink in a day, I do know that our bodies rely on water to stay alive and function properly. After all, we know that a human body is 75% water. Hydration is essential.

Brady’s nutritionist critics jumped on him and described overhydration as dangerous.

Indeed, one can overhydrate.

They claimed that Brady’s suggestion of more than a gallon a day is too much. I’m always ready to dispute a conventionally trained anybody and in this case, especially. I recalled a warning sign along a highway in a California desert reminding drivers to drink at least a gallon of water daily. And that’s with no exercise considered at all. Now, that was the desert,

health, are like most other natural therapeutic resolutions.

They are not instant gratification or resolution. A headache may respond to rehydration in a slower timeframe than it would with hydrocodone or other painkilling drugs. And though water is something I will use every day for a lifetime, I don’t consider it addictive.

The side-effects are negligible.

Temperature matters

but I’ve known it to get pretty warm in summers just about anywhere in the USA. Brady’s suggestion seems on par with the road signs in California, about the only thing in California Brady or I might agree with.

Winter and summer Sweaty summers and desert heat are one thing. But what about winter hydration? My hygrometer says it’s 85% humidity outside in the middle of February. If it’s 85%, then why are my hands so dry? Why is my house so dry? Well, the answer is humidity is relative. It’s not 85% humidity inside because it’s not five below inside the house. The atmosphere holds water based on temperature. Let’s say the higher the temperature, the less water the atmosphere holds. So in winter when it’s a comfortable 72 degrees inside, the relative humidity could be as low as 10% in the house. That makes the humidity inside the same as Death Valley in July. That’s dry.

If that roadside warning from

the State of California is good advice when the air is so dry in the desert, I’m calling it a good bet that a gallon of water a day is not a horrible idea.

In the heat of summer, we usually don’t need to remember to drink water. Winter is different. With the lower temperatures, it’s easy to forget but just as important to remember.

In my non-professional opinion, dehydration can be more dangerous than overhydration. Cells need hydration to maintain integrity. The system needs hydration to flush toxins and byproducts. Nothing does that better than water. There have been so many times I have heard of someone having a problem with everything from digestion to sleep to skin issues to headaches, and I have seen the issue resolve with proper hydration. Cognition, aches and pains, mood swings — all are issues that I’ve heard of improving with adequate water intake.

Improving nutrition and hydration, holistic approaches to

Temperature is a factor when it comes to humidity, and it’s also a consideration with hydration. At restaurants, my dad always asked for water without ice. He didn’t get too specific but alluded to the fact that the body had to warm the water up to make it useful.

Turns out, the older I am, the smarter my dad gets. It’s true.

Water at room temperature is a better choice than iced water, for a lot of reasons. Makes a lot more sense in the winter, too.

When the temperature drops and the air inside is dry as a bone, be sure to pay attention and stay hydrated. It’s at least as important as it is in the summer and takes a bit more effort to remember.

Be well.

Heartland Healing is a metaphysically based polemic describing alternatives to conventional methods of healing the body, mind and planet. It is provided as information and entertainment, certainly not medical advice. Important to remember and pass on to others: for a weekly dose of Heartland Healing, visit heartlandhealing.com.

MARCH 2021

29

O V E R

T H E

E D G E

What Are They

Jon Taylor of punk trio Domestica is riding out the pandemic on his basement stage.

Waiting For?

As COVID-19 retreats, the stage has been set.

It’s the artists who have cold feet.

by Tim McMahan

L

ast month I told you where some of the more important local stages for indie music stand in regard to booking shows.

A year after the pandemic began, places like Slowdown, The Waiting Room and Reverb Lounge are reopening their stages. And while it’ll be some time before touring bands hit the road again, local acts are invited to plug in and rock on.

The only thing stopping that from happening are the bands themselves. I reached out to a dozen local musicians to find out when they’d play again on a local stage.

Their answers reflected a serious respect for COVID-19.

Jon Taylor, lead guitarist for Lincoln-based seminal punk trio Domestica, is waiting for folks to get vaccinated. “Based on current vaccine shipping schedules, summer appears to be the earliest anyone should consider assembling large groups of humans for any reason,” Taylor said. He’s passed the pandemic time rocking out on his own glittering basement stage where, “I’m able to self-medicate with high volume until gigs happen.”

Domestica has been known to share a stage with Wagon Blasters, the tractor-punk powerhouse fronted by the inimitable Gary Dean Davis. Those with a sense of history will remember how these folks’ previous bands — Mercy Rule and Frontier Trust — were integral to Nebraska’s first wave of indie punk almost 30 years ago.

Davis has spent his downtime focusing on his record label — SPEED! Nebraska — which reissued Frontier Trust’s debut CD in June and released a new Mezcal Bros. album, Shakin’ Dog, in September.

“As Joe Strummer famously said, ‘The future is unwritten,’” Davis said. “Hopefully things can calm

30

down over the summer, (and) we are able to return to playing shows.

Maybe we’ll need to start off outside to keep everyone safe?”

Wagon Blasters bandmate, bassist Kate Williams, said while she would be comfortable on stage once vaccinations have reached the majority, “It will be strange to return to the small, intimate venues that I love, where the audience is right on top of the band.”

Williams hasn’t seen Davis or her other bandmates in person in a year. “Many of us are high-risk (or high-risk-adjacent) and aren’t comfortable practicing in an enclosed basement yet with each other, let alone playing in a room full of friends that we also haven’t seen in the last year,” she said. “It will happen though — I miss all of it so much!”

Caution also was the theme for legendary bassist/musician Dereck Higgins. “I’ll be 66 in July, and that is why I am being cautious and in no hurry to get out in the public gigging,” he said, pointing to fall for a possible return. In the meantime, he’s been recording new music and working on an art project with local choreographer Lauren Simpson.

Craig Fort of punk band Leafblower created an entirely new, outlaw-country-infused musical persona called Lightning Stills during the pandemic. “Obviously COVID is keeping us from booking anything, as well as neither project has been in the same room together in a year,” Fort said. “We all take this very seriously. Not being able to play shows is what’s keeping me from releasing anything physical. Without shows, I don’t have a booth to peddle my goods.”

MARCH 2021

Indie rockers See Through Dresses frontwoman Sara Bertuldo said her band is still together, “but we’re just focusing on different things at the moment. Some of us are back in school, focusing on work, and/or learning some new skills.” And she added, “We’ve also been working on our third album!”

One of my favorite songs released during the pandemic is “Snake in my Basement,” an infectious (in a good way) garage rocker by Those Far Out Arrows. Guitarist/vocalist Ben Keelan-White thinks his band will be back on stage possibly in early- to mid-summer.

“Outdoor shows seem more likely, but maybe some indoor venues might be willing to make some moves,” he said. “I feel like there is an optimism with more vaccine administration on the horizon. Nobody wants to be a part of a spreader event, but I think the type of individuals who want shows back would be absolutely willing to take the utmost precaution needed to go forward.”

“We’re all dying for shows, but nobody should die for shows,” said Aaron Gumm, half of the red hot electronic rock duo Glow in the Dark. “My parents in Iowa get their second shot next week, and my sister in Austin got her first today. Things are moving in the right direction.”

Some aren’t waiting to return to the stage. Josh Hoyer, one of the area’s best blues and soul voices, played a Sunday residency Feb. 21 at The Jewell in downtown Omaha.

“It wasn’t an easy decision, but it came down to me needing to get back to work and the venues needing to start getting people in or shutting down for good.” Hoy-

er said. “At this point, I am trusting people to do what is best for their health and the health of the community. So far, everything has been good, but the moment I feel that there is too much risk in any given venue, I will have to reassess my involvement with them. I think if people are intelligent about it, we can slowly get back to live entertainment.”

Darren Keen, the mastermind behind The Show Is the Rainbow and now a new electronic act, Problems, has a gig booked on St. Patrick’s Day at Boombox Social Club in Lincoln.

“As long as people are masked up and distanced, I’m OK with it at this point,” Keen said. “I’m still hesitant to book my own shows because I can’t honestly say, ‘You gotta come to this gig’ right now.

I respect that people want to stay home and safe, and so if I can’t promote things 100% I’m not comfortable booking them.”

I saved the final word for Landon Hedges of one of my alltime favorite indie rock bands, Little Brazil. Hedges doesn’t know when he’ll be back on stage.

“It’s a matter of responsibility and feeling comfortable in the sort of environment that I’m used to playing a show or going to a show,” he said. “I want to do both.

But this virus isn’t about me or what I want to do. I just want to try to do the right thing.

It fucking sucks. You can quote me on that one.”

Over The Edge is a monthly column by Reader senior contributing writer Tim McMahan focused on culture, society, music, the media and the arts.

Email Tim at tim.mcmahan@ gmail.com.

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