ART WORLDS of THEThrough December 30, 2018 Michael Rakowitz TIMETHE TIME is NOW! CHICAGO’s SOUTH SIDE The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist (Room Z, Northwest Palace of Nimrud)1960-1980 September 13–December 30 ART WORLDS of NOVEMBER 2–DECEMBER 21, 2018 smartmuseum.uchicago.edu CHICAGO’s SOUTH SIDE 1711 WEST CHICAGO AVENUE 1960-1980 CHICAGO ILLINOIS 60622 WWW. RHO FFM A NGA LLERY. C O M Mariana Castillo DeballLogan Center Gallery • Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts • 915 E 60th St Chicago IL 60637November 16 — BEN TINSLEY PETLACOATL McCormick NOVEMBER 2018 arts.uchicago.edu/logan/gallery Gallery Newcity Nov. 10 - Jan. 19 January 13 51
EXHIBITIONSTHE ARTS CLUB OF CHICAGO ILLINOIS HOLOCAUST MUSEUM & EDUCATION CENTER201 East Ontario Street312 787 3997 9603 Woods Drive, Skokie, [email protected] / www.artsclubchicago.org 847 967 4800Tues–Fri 11-6, Sat 11-3 [email protected] / www.ilholocaustmuseum.orgThrough December 21 Gaylen Gerber Mon–Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Fri–Sun 10-5Garden Project: Jenny Kendler and Brian Kirkbride – October 7–June 23, 2019 Activists and Icons: The Photographs The Playhead of Dawn of Steve Schapiro September 16–January 27, 2019 The Last Goodbye VirtualTHE BLOCK MUSEUM OF ART Reality ExperienceAt Northwestern University July 19–January 13, 2019 Stories of Survival Object.Image.Memory40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, IL Always Open: Take a Stand Center and Karkomi Holocaust Exhibition847 491 [email protected] / www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu LINDA WARREN PROJECTSTues, Sat–Sun 10-5, Wed–Fri 10-8, Mon closedThrough December 9 Up is Down: Mid-Century Experiments 327 N. Aberdeen, Ste. 151 312 432 9500 in Advertising and Film at the Goldsholl studio [email protected] / www.lindawarrenprojects.comThrough December 9 Break A Rule: Ed Paschke’s Art and Teaching Tues–Sat 11-5 or by private appointmentThrough November 4 Paul Chan: Happiness (finally) after 35,000 years Through October 27 Michiko Itatani - Shadows of the Mind - Gallery Y Through October 27 Paula Henderson - Regard - Gallery O of civilization Through October 27 Paula Henderson - Groundwork(s) - Gallery XCARL HAMMER GALLERY LOGAN CENTER EXHIBITIONS740 N. Wells Street At the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts312 266 8512 915 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL [email protected] / www.carlhammergallery.com 773 702 2787Tues–Fri 11-6, Sat 11-5 [email protected] / arts.uchicago.edu/logan-centerSeptember 7–October 27 Vanessa German - Things Are Not Always Tues–Sat 9-9, Sun 11-9, Mon closed Through October 28 Candice Lin: A Hard White Body, a Porous Slip What They Seem: A Phenomenology of Black Girlhood November 16–January 13, 2019 Mariana Castillo Deball: PetlacoatlNovember 2–December 29 Ka-Bam! Holy Moly! 70’s and 80’s Chicago Art From The Lonn Frye CollectionDEPAUL ART MUSEUM MONIQUE MELOCHE GALLERYAt DePaul University 451 N. Paulina Street935 W. Fullerton Avenue 312 243 2129773 325 7506 [email protected] / [email protected] / artmuseum.depaul.edu Tues–Sat 11-6Mon–Tues closed, Wed–Thurs 11-7, Fri–Sun 11-5 November 15–December 22 Ebony G. Patterson: ...for thoseThrough December 16 Brendan Fernandes: The Living Mask who bear/bare witness...Through December 16 Whitney Bradshaw: OutcryThrough December 16 Yasuhiro Ishimoto: Someday, Chicago
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY RHONA HOFFMAN GALLERYPHOTOGRAPHY 1711 W. Chicago AvenueAt Columbia College Chicago 312 455 1990600 S. Michigan Avenue [email protected] / www.rhoffmangallery.com312 663 5554 Tues–Fri 10-5:30, Sat 11-5:[email protected] / www.mocp.org November 2–December 31 Michael Rakowitz: The Invisible EnemyMon–Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Fri–Sat 10-5, Sun 12-5Through December 21 The Many Hats of Ralph Arnold: Should Not Exist (Room Z, Northwest Palace of Nimrud) Art, Identity & Politics RICHARD GRAY GALLERYThrough December 21 Echoes: Reframing Collage Richard Gray Gallery, Hancock: 875 N. Michigan Avenue, 38th FloorTHE NEUBAUER COLLEGIUM Mon–Fri 10-5:30FOR CULTURE AND SOCIETY Gray Warehouse: 2044 W. Carroll Avenue Wed–Sat 11-5At the University of Chicago 312 642 88775701 South Woodlawn Avenue [email protected] / www.richardgraygallery.com773 795 2329 Through November 21 David Hockney: Time and More,[email protected] / www.neubauercollegium.uchicago.eduMon–Fri 10-5 Space and More…Through December 21 Jason Dodge with Ishion Hutchinson: SCHINGOETHE CENTER The Broad Church of Night of Aurora UniversityPOETRY FOUNDATION 1315 Prairie Street, Aurora, IL 630 844 784361 W. Superior Street [email protected] / www.aurora.edu/museum312 787 7070 Mon, Wed–Fri 10-4, Tues [email protected] / www.poetryfoundation.org Through December 14 Joel Sheesley: A Fox River TestimonyMon–Fri 11-4 Through December 14 Celebrating 125 Years: Aurora UniversitySeptember 27–December 21 Krista Franklin: “…to take root among SMART MUSEUM OF ART the stars.” At the University of ChicagoTHE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY 5550 S. Greenwood Avenue 773 702 0200At the University of Chicago [email protected] / www.smartmuseum.uchicago.edu5811 S. Ellis Ave., Cobb Hall, 4th Floor Tues–Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Fri–Sun 10-5773 702 8670 Through December 16 Expanding Narratives: The [email protected] / www.renaissancesociety.orgTues–Wed, Fri 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Sat–Sun 12-5 and the GroundNovember 17–January 27, 2019 Let me consider it from here Through December 30 The Time Is Now! Art Worlds of Chicago’s South Side, 1960–1980
Dance Nomi Dance CompanyAte9 Dance Company in “calling glenn”/Photo: Cheryl Mann DANCE TOP 5 Making Commodity 1The Better Half. Steppenwolf From Air 1700 Theatre. Lucky Plush’s wildly inventive reflection on the Ate9 Dance Company and Wilco’s Glenn Kotche joys, woes, claustrophobia and Join Forces in an Uplifting Experience liberation of domesticity returns for an extended run at By Sharon Hoyer Steppenwolf’s black-box theater. November 2-17Newcity NOVEMBER 2018 After years as rehearsal director of the one-night-only program at the Auditorium world-renowned Tel Aviv-based Batsheva Theatre, sharing the bill with Chicago 2 Miami City Ballet. Dance Company, Danielle Agami emigrated to companies Visceral Dance Chicago and Harris Theater. The the United States with a vision: to start her Deeply Rooted Dance Theater. They will acclaimed company led by own dance company, informed by the perform “calling glenn,” an hour-long Cuban-American Lourdes Lopez innovative movement techniques developed collaboration with Wilco percussionist Glenn brings a mixed repertory of by Batsheva director Ohad Naharin, and Kotche, who performs onstage alongside the Balanchine, Brian Brooks and a grounded in her own approach to teaching nine dancers in the company. I spoke with piece co-choreographed by and the discoveries of individual dancers. With Agami over the phone about upcoming Twyla Tharp and Jerome Naharin’s blessing, Agami taught Gaga—his performance and the origins of “calling glenn.” Robbins. November 8-9 now-legendary technique—in the United States for several years, but is quick to note How did you and Glenn Kotche connect 3 EKILI MUNDA/What Lies that Gaga is just one aspect of the choreo- for this project? Within. Dance Center of graphic approach in her Los Angeles-based Catharine Soros [a director of the Music Columbia College. A longterm troupe, Ate9 Dance Company.Ate9 visits Center of Los Angeles County] knew us collaboration between Chicago’s Chicago for the first time November 16 in a separately and offered us the opportunity to Red Clay Dance Company and Uganda’s Keiga Dance Company launches with an exploration of the body as cultural archive. November 8-10 4 Calling Glenn. Auditorium Theatre. LA-based Ate9 Dance Company visits Chicago for the first time, bringing a collaboration with Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche. November 16 5 RockCitizen. Studio 5. The Seldoms take the bra-scape to Evanston in a re-staging of their rock ‘n’ roll reflection on social protest move- ments of the 1960s and 1970s. November 16 & 1754
get to know each other. We were randomly in Chicago that will be completely new. And Batsheva. It feels right to be working here. lucky to be introduced. Since then it’s been our cast has been refreshed with newongoing and the flow is spectacular. We do a company members. You mentioned “calling glenn” having to lot and we make changes with ease. The do with asking for help.communication is great between us; why we And did the title come from your long-dis- The piece is coming to explore the wonder of make things is very similar and how seriously tance collaboration with Kotche? human connection and interaction. We are allor not we take things. I actually named the piece twenty-four hours really different, but we have secrets that are before I met Glenn. I received a donation from mutual. The piece comes to touch it. I do like What was your creative process for Glenn Kawasaki and I promised I would name how the understatement and overstatement of“calling glenn?” a piece after him. For me “calling glenn” is like the movement and the music come together, It started from Glenn literally sharing with me calling for help. To ask for help and be helped. so when we meet the audience, it’s an openany piece of music he made in recent years In my time in the United States I find it harder offer. It’s all in the viewer to allow yourself to beand I shopped from a very large collection. It and harder to ask for what I need, to ask for touched by those offers. It’s delicate and I was broad what I could work with. Then I help. I had to name the piece because the think it’s generous, but it’s not apologetic orcreated an order, then came with requests— press release was going out. Funny enough, discounting the process for the viewer. make this faster, this longer, add this beat—he twenty-four hours later Catharine introducedgave me permission to ask for what I wanted. me to Glenn Kotche. No one believes the title Making commodity from air, from a moment, is Every few weeks we flew him over. It’s nice to has nothing to do with Glenn Kotche, but so much how I like to treat life. The moment feel we’re still in process—he’ll be here in a there’s no point in explaining it. The name leaving a mark on me, having another few days. It’s been a clean dialogue with me Glenn could be replaced by anyone. But the conclusion, another experience. The audienceas director. He shows a lot of trust and it sets drummer can’t. The piece is so much for him feels how eager the people on stage are to me to succeed. and with him. have a truthful meeting. I’m quite confident we’ll have a powerful meeting on that stage. How has the piece evolved since you first Why did you choose to establish acreated it? company in the United States? Auditorium Theatre, 50 East Congress, I feel it can go deeper and sharper and we There is hunger and talent here. Not everyone (312)341-2300. Thursday, November 16 at keep growing with it. There will be one section can move to the Middle East and dance with 7:30pm. Tickets at auditoriumtheatre.org.PUBLISHERSCHICAGO PRINTERS GUILD NOVEMBER 2018 Newcity 2018–19 SEASONFAIRSAT. 3RD ANNUALNOV.10.18 2018 45 YEARS AM - 6PM11 C O N S T E L L AT I O N Join us for our 45th anniversary season of at astonishing, visceral contemporary dance from national and local companies. 3111 N WESTERN AVE CHICAGO, IL TICKETS | $30 REGULAR | $24 SENIORS | $10 STUDENTS SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE 25% BOX OFFICE: dance.colum.edu FEATURING +30 Print Artists Pictured: Urban Bush Women Original Artwork for Sale Drinks by Constellation 55 Music by CHIRP RadioFraming by The Frame Shop Nice Folks!
Design DESIGN TOP 5Nicole Alexander, Siren Betty Founder and Principal Designer 1 SOFA Chicago. Navy Pier. Siren Betty More than eighty galleries and dealers gather at Navy Pier for the Meet the All-Women Team Behind Some of the Most design event of the year, the Instagram-Worthy Places in Town Sculpture Objects Functional Art and Design Fair. November 1-4 By Vasia Rigou 2 Ando and Le Corbusier:Newcity NOVEMBER 2018 A 110-year-old former Free Methodist breakfast, Quiote Mexican restaurant and Masters of Architecture. Publishing House turned hip, urban B&B— lounge, pHlour all-natural bakery and cafe, Wrightwood 659. Wrightwood think exposed brick, refurbished furnishing and Solo salon and Dustin Drankiewicz’s newest 659 will showcase more than a vintage-inspired floor tile patterns combined cocktail bar, Pink Squirrel—knows their stuff. hundred drawings and with cowskin rugs, taxidermy and mid-century Describing their unique approach to the photographs by Swiss-French modern pieces scavenged from flea markets spaces they create as one that uses mid-cen- pioneer of modern architecture and thrift stores around the country. A tury-modern-design nods, eccentric wallpaper, and design, Le Corbusier. nostalgia-inspired space with 1960s midwest- tiles sourced from around the world and Through December 15 ern supper club vibes, vinyl booths, a vintage beautiful greenery that makes any space feel soda machine and a two-lane bowling alley. An more alive, the Siren Betty team leaves no 3 Up is Down: underground wine bar finding balance stone unturned—from concept to design to Mid-Century Experiments between old and new with design elements execution. in Advertising and Film at that include velvet-tufted sofas, an old-school the Goldsholl Studio. refrigerator and a custom-made mural. A And when Lexi Goddard (a self-described Block Museum of Art. Brings small-plate Mexican joint, an elegant hair and jack-of-all-trades with responsibilities that together the multidisciplinary work nail salon, an artisan bakery and a Dr. Marten’s include conceptual art, project bidding and of the Goldsholl Design studio— store in the heart of Wicker Park. installation management), interior designer rarely seen films and light Nikki Wlodarczyk and Susan Williams, the experiments, posters, print What do they all have in common? Two words: team’s project manager, get together under advertisements and package Siren Betty. The all-women team behind some the guidance of founder and principal designer design. Through December 9 of the most Instagram-worthy places around Nicole Alexander, they’re not afraid to get their the city—namely The Press Room, discreetly hands dirty. Which is why they deliver. “Siren 4 Art Deco Cemetery Tour. located in the basement of The Publishing Betty Design is an all-woman, full-service team Bohemian National House, the eleven-room West Loop bed-and- and that means being hands-on and even Cemetery. Exploring the design aesthetics of the afterlife, the56 Chicago History Museum organizes tours of the Bohemian National Cemetery. November 2 5 Keep Moving: Designing Chicago’s Bicycle Culture. Design Museum of Chicago. An exhibition that looks at bicycle design and manufacturing in Chicago and the city’s contribution to the early popularity of bicycles in America at-large. October 19-February 15
gaps with unique pieces that are often found or repurposed,” she says. “We always try to find classic elements that won't tire. We don't want a space to feel overdone. Instead, we want the spaces we design to feel lived in.” To achieve the perfect balance, the team brings in vintage furniture, flea market finds, and sources items handmade by artisans in developing nations. “Hunting for vintage finds is our favorite! We love discovering and refurbishing treasures and we love the socially conscious and green aspect of it as well—we try to reuse and repurpose as much as possible on our projects. It's very important to us.” How does she go about design in her personal life and spaces? “My personal design taste is modern and eclectic—much Pink Squirrel/ Photo: Joshua Haines like Siren Betty Design's projects,” she says. using power tools from time to time,” says “I'm constantly swapping out fixtures and Alexander. With a background in 3D studio art and art history, she was working in the collaborate on ideas and the design of a furnishings. On shopping trips for clients, I hospitality industry before her transition into interiors. “Siren Betty Design was born in 2006 space,” she says. \"Final installs are an exciting usually find a piece that I need too.” Between through an amazing network of architects and step as well—we always enjoy being able to commercial and residential spaces, she designers, and a determination to own my see a project come together.” As she crafts her currently keeps busy renovating Old Town own business,” she says, stressing the staple Benchmark, part co-working space, importance of Chicago's constantly growing creative vision, her inspiration comes from creative and entrepreneurial community. part incubator, part members club, Salt Flats many things including fashion, art, travel,“The most fun aspect of a project is connecting visiting new bars and restaurants, and reading and various bars and restaurants around town. with the owners and operators. We've met so But, always up for a challenge, she has many great business owners and it's fun to books and magazines. “My team is also the another big project in the works: “We have best source of inspiration,” she says. “We been renovating our house for a year and we brainstorm before every project.” have another year left,” she says. “It's a fun As for Siren Betty’s ability to seamlessly bridge process, but I'm scared that by the time the design styles and sensibilities across multiple renovations are complete, I'll be bored and decades: “If the construction is new we fill the ready for something new!” NOVEMBER 2018 Newcity 57
D&iDnirningkingNewcity NOVEMBER 2018 Farmers who represent at GCM and smaller farmers’ markets are bringing back heritage Eating fish in Sihanoukville, Cambodia/photo: David Hammond varieties of produce and animals that neverA Taste of Place made it into the grocery-store supply chain.The Essential Qualities of Local Markets Of the 1,000 varieties of heritage apples out there, very few will be found in your localBy David Hammond grocery store. Walt Skibbe, who sells at many local farmers’ markets, introduced us to Traditional local markets reflect the Visiting a local market is the best way to get heritage apples unseen in supermarkets. culture of a place in ways supermarkets a taste of place. Wherever I go in the world, Skibbe’s apple varieties, such as Northern Spy, cannot. Supermarket chains leverage the there’s nowhere I’d rather head than the are sometimes misshapen, mottled, or predictable familiarity of branded products. local market. otherwise not uniform enough to make it to a Kroger in the United States, Tops Market in grocery-store shelf. His apples are eye-open- Thailand, Tesco in Europe, all are built on a Green City Market, ing in their diversity. “I’m mainly apples,” principle of sameness in products, layout Lincoln Park, Chicago Skibbe says, although he also sells asparagus, and overall vibe. With the advent of services Visiting Chicago’s Green City Market, or the peaches and other produce. like Amazon’s Prime Now, the market smaller local farmers’ markets, brings you as experience is further dislocated from a close as possible to traditional Midwestern In the United States, grocery stores limit their sense of regional culture. foods and people. selections based on what sells and who pays the slotting fee to secure prime space on the58 shelves, which eliminates produce from many smaller farmers. Grocery stores, of necessity, focus on the same mass-produced goods, with few unique-to-place items. Kimironko market, Kigali, Rwanda Standing in the center of the Kimironko market in Rwanda, I like what I see and what I don’t see. There are hundreds of small businesspeople, selling fabrics, fish and fruit, shopping, haggling, testing the merchandise, feeling and smelling, sometimes buying, more often not. There’s lots of talking and hubbub. The market is wonderfully alive. What I don’t see are Mzungu, people of European descent, people like me. I didn’t come to Kimironko to go elbow-to-elbow with other foreigners vying for deals. Better, I think, to see what Rwandans shop for and how they shop for it. There is a community sense at places like Green City Market, but our Chicago market is very different from the one in Rwanda. The Kimironko market is open every day of the week. It’s an everyday market. Another difference is that items for sale are not portioned into disposable containers; instead, you ask for the amount you need. At this market, few signs above the stands indicate who’s selling what; everyone knows who’s selling what, so you don’t need to announce yourself. As you might expect, there are no indicators of how far a food item traveled from the farm to the market, but you can be sure that the distance was not great.
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Finally, unlike at the Green City Market, at this clusters of BB-sized fruit, highly perishable and virtually unknown outside their growing area. market in Rwanda, a single stand does not We nibble a few: each pops like fish roe, offer a range of produce. This is a nation of releasing a gummy liquid tasting of briny small businesspeople operating in simpler seaweed: delicious. economies, so they specialize in one or two products, never the dozens you’d expect to Every day in Thailand, we’d visit local markets, DINING & DRINKING TOP 5 find at a Midwestern farmer’s stand. and every single day, we’d see fruits and 1 Kouzina. National Hellenic Christkindlmarket, vegetables, even fish, we’d never seen before. Museum. Billed as the Second City’s hidden gem Daley Plaza, Chicago It’s breathtaking, the range of creation. food event, this celebration of Greek cuisine on the top floor All over Europe, at Christmas time, there are Sihanoukville, Cambodia of the National Hellenic Museum features chefs like Louis holiday markets, usually set up in front of Alexakis of Avli, Nate Henssler cathedrals, a heavily trafficked and traditionally Pulling into Sihanoukville, Cambodia, we went of Portsmith, Peter Kappos directly to the local market. Housed in a of Greek Islands and David important part of town. In Chicago, no holy Schneider of Taxim. November 1 place gets quite as much traffic as the Daley mammoth Quonset hut, with open wooden sides and an aluminum roof, the market had 2 Passport to France. Center, with lawyers, defendants and others Zhou B Art Center. French the distinctive smell of raw meat warming in food and wine provide trooping in and out all day. confirmation that the French sunlight. Many people were barefoot. Two are the preeminent foodies on the planet. November 15 At Chicago’s Christkindlmarket, you can eat British women came by to complain about 3 Christkindlmarket. Daley Germanic food items you’d have a hard time what they called “this shit market,” a comment Plaza. The twenty-third I found highly offensive. annual gathering of German finding anywhere else in Chicago. The and Austrian craftspeople and cooks provides a little bit of Leberkäse is not, despite the name, made of Europe in the center of liver anymore, but rather emulsified beef and Granted, this market wasn’t as tidy and Chicago. Try the glögg, or hygienic as it might have been, but who mulled wine. It’s warming and pork, baked in a pan. What you get in your winter is the right time to drink cares? This is Cambodia, where Pol Pot led it. November 16-December 24 sandwich is a big slab of lightly spiced the Khmer Rouge to the killing fields to murder 4 Festival of Wood- and bologna, a hotdog-burger, if you will. It’s the Barrel-Aged Beer. common people’s food, and we look forward as many as three-million fellow Cambodians. UIC Forum. Chicago is home to They lived through a horrendous national fine craft beers, and this event to it every year. with over 200 breweries nightmare, so we can perhaps forgive them for present, demonstrates what can be done when you age the Currywurst Berlin-style is another item you not sweeping the aisles regularly. stuff like a fine wine. November 16-17 have to search out in Chicago, though Paulina Me, I didn’t want to leave this place where 5 Thanksgiving Seafood Market does sell a sausage billed as curry- people haggled vigorously with neighbors Buffet. Shaw’s Crab House. Most prefer turkey for wurst, but it’s not the traditional sausage Thanksgiving, we’d rather have snack. In Berlin, and at Chicago’s Christkindl- and where kids stood with their parents caviar and crab, and for the market, currywurst is a pork sausage, cut into tending shop, learning to be grownups. It holiday, Shaw’s lays it on. was good to see. November 22 coins, covered in ketchup, seasoned with curry. The story is that this street food was invented in postwar Berlin when an enterpris- Though hungry, we take precautions when ordering food in a market. It’s best to get it hot, ing charwoman traded English soldiers right off the grill. The cooked fish was fantastic, schnapps for their curry powder. After experimentation in her home kitchen, she sold likely caught that morning in the South China Sea, nothing fancy, no seasoning, just the the resulting currywurst on the streets of clean taste of fresh fish pulled off the charcoal war-ravaged Berlin. Today, there’s a Curry- wurst Museum around the corner from Berlin’s and served. old Checkpoint Charlie, an enduring monu- ment to Germany’s most famous street food. The one place in Chicago where you get the sense of traditional market—like those in Chicago, of course, was shaped by waves of Europe, Asia and Africa—is at the Maxwell German immigrants. As of the 2000 census, Street Market, relocated twice from the street Germans make up the largest European ethnic of the same name and now lodged on Desplaines Street. group in Chicago and those of German ancestry are the largest ethnic group in eighty Maxwell Street Market, Chicago percent of Chicago’s suburbs. That would Maxwell Street Market was once Jewish, then explains why we have a German-inspired holiday festival in Chicago rather than a French- mostly African American, now it’s Mexican, and maybe soon, Middle Eastern. The market or Belgian-inspired holiday festival. is a constant reflection of the changingNewcity NOVEMBER 2018 Bangkok, Thailand demographic of the city: corned beef, the Waking up in Bangkok one morning in 2015, blues and now lots of Mexican food. You can be sure you’re getting as close as possible to I looked out our window to see that, the constantly changing roots of this place. overnight, a market had sprung up right outside. What luck! Alas, the Maxwell Street Market is shrinking. We go downstairs to shop for breakfast and It’s not as abundant with vendors this summer find foods we’ve never seen before. There are as last. In a few years, it’s possible the market will be a memory. When that happens, we’ll all muffins made from a type of squash and lose some of the connection to place that’s still mounds of crisp Rose apples, a cross between an apple and a pear, largely unknown so powerfully present in local markets in other in the states. There are also sea grapes, small parts of the world.60
FilmAll’s Welles That Ends scene in the back seat of a car driving through slashing rain, one of three scenes directed byThe Apparition of “The Other Side of the Wind” Kodar. Sustained sound-and-image collage like this is rare: rhythmic, enveloping, alarming,By Ray Pride even hallucinatory in its voluptuousness. The woman is in control, wholly. (Welles scholar Bone and ash ground to powder: that is There is drinking and there are recriminations, Jonathan Rosenbaum tells me that the other NOVEMBER 2018 Newcity what Orson Welles leaves behind with “The and dozens of cameras in multiple film formats scenes directed by Kodar are the climactic Other Side of the Wind.” that provide fabric for the kinetic weave of the film-within-the-film scene, as well as a cutting of the scenes with Hannaford in mortal nightclub washroom scene, as bold with Crumpled cars, husks of spent lives and sorry combat with his necessary lessers. Multiple urgent erotic moment as an anachronistic souls, the wind along a symbol-strewn beach, points-of-view? Or selfie over-saturation mesh of Juzo Itami’s “Tampopo” and Alejandro dust kicking up at a drive-in where cars have decades before the moment? Welles wanted Jodorowsky’s “El Topo.”) departed and an image projected upon the to surpass himself; he hoped “Other Side of screen has faded at the thin dawn of a new day. the Wind” could leap into the future while But Hannaford, the man, loses control, his densely encoding his own past. (Or, as the first imperious, needful control of all that swirls inTwo movies lock in deathly embrace: the Netflix trailer proclaims, “From the Mind That his world, his tightly capped sexual habits,“reality” of a seventieth birthday party at a Brought You ‘Citizen Kane.’”) disdain for symbolism, his diet half Scotch, half remote ranch for Hollywood lion Jake venom. What does it matter what you say Hannaford (magisterial and malefic John Amid projection snafus, the listless, increasing- about people? The man’s alive right there in Huston), to which lackeys, acolytes and a ly hostile crowd watches the never-to-be-fin- front of them but the keepers of Hannaford’s crew of critical lickspittles, mostly male, have ished movie that Hannaford has choked on, a legacy peck, peck, peck, even in his leonine been trucked in, along with a busload of literal boldly designed, wordless, widescreen presence: pecking him to death like ducks. dummies. Peter Bogdanovich plays “Brooks fantasia. A hapless curly haired boy, as in The obsidian heart of the intricate screenplay, Otterlake,” a version of his smug self; Susan dream, fails to win the dark-eyed woman by Welles and Kodar is thrilling. Viperous, Strasberg is “Julie Rich,” a hectoring version of (co-writer Oja Kodar) he pursues. She is seamed with savagery, vainglory and a hunger Welles nemesis Pauline Kael; young Joseph physically elusive in every encounter, even in for victims, plus John Huston’s incarnation of McBride is “Mister Pister.” the notorious, seven-minute-long lovemaking Jake Hannaford, a filmmaking legend debuting bits of his would-be with-it widescreen movie, is honeyed malice, an inebriate howl of terrified, 61
FILM TOP 5 Oja Kodar 1 The Complete Jean wounded masculinity. Welles resisted the siren Wake” (co-written by Joseph Campbell). Vigo. Siskel, November 30-December 5. Digital song of high Freudianism, but his fondness for Welles believed “The Other Side of the Wind,” restorations of one of the smallest but most essential the high beams of villainy in Shakespeare is bodies of work in all of unquestioned. (On the dummy, show us where carved from decades of personal experience cinema: “À propos de Nice,” as a genius outside the system, was a movie “Taris, roi de l’eau,” “Zéro de Shakespeare touched you, Orson.) conduite” and “L’Atalante.” that would cap his career and make it easier to 2 Bodied. Opens “The Other Side of the Wind” is of the moment busk for cash for future productions. It’s not a November 2. Rap-battle of its production, from approximately 1970 to difficult movie. But with Welles’ rank of comedy of fierce and foul unalloyed monsters, one wonders what energy from Joseph Kahn, 1977, yet in this shimmering apparition, a whose savage third feature shotgun blast from the future. It took years for audience he expected, even in the early 1970s, demonstrates once more that to embrace “The Wind.” Entertainment today he belongs on the big screen “The Other Side of the Wind” to arrive at this as well as the high-end music doesn’t do well with brutally observed anger, video plateau. Plus: it arrives form, this simulacrum of Welles’ intentions at an ungodly timely moment bitterness, mockery and moral adjudication, in America. drawn from a trove of 1,083 elements (including the negative), which weighed over a but what about then? While the nominees for 3 Burning. Music Box, Best Picture in 1975 were “The Godfather Part opens November 30. Lee ton-and-a-half. This version is immaculate, Chang-dong’s South Korean II,” “Lenny,” “The Conversation,” “Chinatown” mystery is lavishly layered with edited and sound-designed by a team of mysteries of life and and “The Towering Inferno,” could this dish of moviemaking, too. Hollywood pros. And while Welles’ and Kodar’s screenplay and his notes are honored, ire and brimstone have displaced Irwin Allen’s 4 The Great Buster. we can never know what improvisations might flaming stars? Siskel, opens November 23. The craft of pantheon have occurred at the editing desk. Editing is a Josh Karp didn’t see “The Other Side of the filmmaker Buster Keaton, as seen by seventy-nine-year-old trick of the fingertips. Whether present-day director Peter Bogdanovich; non-linear editing, or Welles presiding over a Wind” until this summer. When his book was flanked by digital restorations published in 2015, Karp told me, with of Keaton’s essential rented flatbed, the very process is that time “Sherlock, Jr.,” “The General” prophetic accuracy: “There were great, and “Steamboat Bill, Jr. ticks with flicks of the fingers. Editing is both magic trick and electrical impulse of the brain incredible, insane, hilarious stories from the set. 5 Hal. Siskel, opens that leaps from the mind to the surface of the Which was great and I started digging into it November 9. Hal Ashby’s more and more, finding different stories all over “The Last Detail” and “Harold idea again and again. and Maude” accompany Amy the place—and most of them were just terrific. Scott’s bristling, empathetic documentary on the life of the Josh Karp’s 2015 “Orson Welles’ Last Movie: But, there was also this question of what it all great 1970s filmmaker. meant. I had this sense that while the film The Making of The Other Side of the Wind” 62 wasn’t strictly autobiographical—there was provided a springboard for Morgan Neville’s behind-the-scenes documentary “They’ll Love this way in which the whole thing felt like Stephen Colbert’s portrait of himself standing Me When I’m Dead,” on how the post in front of a portrait of himself, standing in front production stalled time and again before of a portrait of himself, and so on endlessly. Welles’ death in 1985. “Love Me” is a brisk, This guy who is the greatest artist of all time irreverent complement to Welles’ brawling caravanserai, offering the man himself ample possibly getting lost in his own creativity and time to purr, coo and rue over the project and process making a movie that’s about people making a movie about a guy who is making a its setbacks. movie—and casting it with [film] people he Watching the double feature with “Love Me” as knew, frequently playing some version of the amuse-bouche, the story of James Joyce themselves and in some cases acting outNewcity NOVEMBER 2018 snapping to a friend who said “Finnegans Wake” storylines that mirrored their relationships with Welles, but all under the guise that it wasn’t was a tough read came to mind: “It took me about Welles. It was such a great mystery and seventeen years to write the damn thing, it one that seemed like it had the potential to should take you seventeen years to read it.” And Nora Joyce referred to ”Finnegans Wake” have great meaning.” as ”that chop suey you’re writing.” “The Other Summon the exegeses! Otterlake! Rich! Pister! Side of the Wind” is not a mess: it is ragged and elegant in bracing measure. While neither “The Other Side of the Wind” opens in limited film is as dense as Joyce’s multilingual release Friday, November 2 when it also nightdream, “Love Me” functions as a useful appendix, like the “A Skeleton Key to Finnegans premieres on Netflix.
164 North State Street • Between Lake & Randolph NOVEMBER 2018 NewcityTHHOERNHEFRAORMTTHE PAUL BUTTERFIELD STORY NOV 9 - 15 \"A must-see for music fans.\" — Film Threat Gael García Bernal in MUSEO NOV 16 - 29 \"Endlessly entertaining.\" — The Playlist BUY TICKETS NOW at www.siskelfilmcenter.org 63
Lit A Tale of Two Cities writing, because not only is research never done but it's a lot easier than the writing.) I started with a couple of hints that I found in Rosellen Brown Discusses \"The Lake on Fire” books— an apparently real story about my immigrants' unwelcomed landing in New York, By Toni Nealie an actual woman as feisty and open-hearted as my Chaya who wrote a memoir defiantly called \"I Belong to the Working Class\"—and Teen siblings Chaya and Asher make a “The Lake on Fire” is set in old Chicago. re-made them. And then I threw in Jane break from their Jewish immigrant farming Why is it relevant now? Addams and Florence Kelley, and one scene family in Wisconsin for the excitement of 1893 I've chosen a moment in Chicago's history— with Bertha Palmer that I loved writing, but that the Gilded Age, the grandeur of the Columbian did make me hope I was doing them justice. I Chicago and the Columbian Exposition, in translated them from a plausible but vague Exposition—that existed alongside terrible Rosellen Brown’s much-awaited new novel “The Lake on Fire.” Brown’s first historical epic poverty. The details have changed, of course, \"reality\" into my own characters, who had to but desperate need hasn't, nor have attentive breathe on their own. Scary. contrasts the glittering Gilded Age image—a people stopped searching for ways to live \"go-getters' town\"—with the city's dreary Inequity is a theme that runs through honest and useful lives. Then as now, mostNewcity NOVEMBER 2018 streets inhabited by poor strugglers. The people turn their faces away from the gaping your books, whether class, anti-Semitism, American Dream is not within easy grasp for race, gender. How have you changed in Chaya, who works in a factory and Asher, who inequities, if they see them at all. how you write about the ethics of society? gets by as a pickpocket. Brown revisits What's the challenge to you as a writer themes of family, love and inequality, recogniz- What were the joys and challenges of this book? to integrate social themes without able from her ten previous books, which The joy—and the challenge—was the pleasure being didactic? include the bestseller “Before and After”— and difficulty of trying to capture the look and Oh, I don't think I've changed, though it's adapted into a movie with Meryl Streep and feel, the smells and sounds, of a time and always a challenge. My first book, poems Liam Neeson. She lives in Hyde Park and place that I had to imagine, or cull from my called “Some Deaths in the Delta,” came from teaches at the School of the Art Institute. reading and from photographs. (It's also the time in the 1960s when my husband and I She talks to Newcity about her new book always hard to stop researching and begin lived and worked in Mississippi and when I and writing.64
Activism meet-ups, personal book Live at The Book Cellarrecommendations, weekly events,Kids Storytime, and more! Joseph Asphahani James AndersonThere are so many “The Animal in Man” “Lullaby Road”reasons to supportChicago’s only November 1, 7pm November 15, 7pmfeminist bookstore. 12th Annual Witty Women Night Bruce Iglauer and Patrick A. Roberts with Stacey Ballis, Claire Zulkey, “Bitten By the Blues” Wendy McClure and Amy Guth November 16, 7pm November 2, 7pm Ron Balson Éric Vuillard “The Girl From Berlin” “Order of the Day” November 17, 6pm November 3, 6pm Jeff Tweedy The Kates! Comedy Night “Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back)” November 9, 7pm November 18, 7pm at Music Box Theater Victoria Moran Essay Fiesta! “Main Street Vegan Academy Cookbook” November 19, 7pm November 10, 2pm at Sulzer Library Small Business Saturday Danielle Martin November 24 “Better Now” Stephanie Strom November 10, 7pm at the Hilton Chicago “Love A La Mode” Susan Orlean November 27, 7pm “The Library Book” Michael Harvey November 13, 6pm “Pulse” at Harold Washington Library November 29, 7pm Zachary Leader “The Life of Saul Bellow” Bryan Smith “Breakaway: The Inside Story of November 15, 6pm the Wirtz Family Business and the at Harold Washington Library Chicago Blackhawks” November 30, 7pm Go to our website for event details, book clubs and more! Your Independent Book Store in Lincoln Square! 4736-38 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago 773.293.2665 • bookcellarinc.comLIVE THE WRITING LIFE YOU IMAGINE Sign up for open-to-all, non-credit courses NOVEMBER 2018 Newcity that will inspire and challenge you at the University of Chicago Writer’s Studio downtown and online. From Basic Creative Writing and Online Novel Workshop to Storytelling for Business, find classes that serve your work. Join our community at lively and inspiring open mics and write-ins. Write with us! NEW CLASSES START SOON Learn more at writersstudio.uchicago.edu. 65
LIT TOP 5 written, at its best, I hope, as if Edith Wharton had a hand in it. I loved adopting a style that fit 1 Overlooked: Ida B. Wells. the times it's chronicling. This puts me on the Harold Washington Library. conservative end of the spectrum at SAIC— New York Times columnist piles of words, love of intricate sentences—so Nikole Hannah-Jones, writer Eve if brevity and the image and 140-character Ewing, author and educator \"literacy\" predominate, look for me somewhere Michelle Duster and WBEZ's else. I'm teaching a graduate course right now Natalie Moore will discuss the life called \"Imitations\" and last week's assignment of Ida B. Wells as part of the was to write as if you were Virginia Woolf. I Chicago Humanities Festival and think my students found it liberating. the Times' \"Overlooked\" series. November 2 It is a long time since your last book. Can you tell me about the pressures of writing 2 Graphic! Chicago and getting published? How is it easier Humanities Fallfest. and harder? Various locations. Featuring David Grann, Abbi Jacobson, Every writer will tell you that the publishing Jessica Hopper, Kiese Laymon, Daniel José Older and Jos world has changed and that's true: consolida- Charles. Through November 30 tion of publishers, editors too busy to edit, 3\"Revelations\" by Ruben Quesada. Unabridged more fretting than ever over the bottom line. Bookstore. Poet and founder of the Latinx Writers Caucus Ruben But the long hiatus between my last novel and Quesada launches a new book, with poets Tara Betts, T Clutch this one was probably more my own responsi- Fleishmann and Kenyatta Rogers. November 15 bility: I just lacked the faith I needed to be sure 4\"Scarface and the I could do this new thing. I have some proof Untouchable\". The American Writers Museum. that I started thinking about it and then doing Author of \"The Road to Perdition,\" Max Allan Collins, guiltily said, on the cover, that maybe poems various versions of it so long time ago that I and historian A. Brad Schwartz were a feeble substitute for action—because won't even tell you how many years the damn discuss their book about Al that's always the fear—a reviewer castigated thing was gestating. And of course I published Capone and Eliot Ness. me by saying, no, poems are a form of action, other things, including three other books, while November 19 this languished out of sight. But I'll tell you that, only in another key. 5 Sunday Salon. after a lucky career in which I'd never had a The Reveler Chicago. Featuring Rebecca Makkai At the sentence level, there is so much book rejected —ten books!—a publisher with (\"The Great Believers\"), Jeremy Wilson (\"Adult Teeth\"), Dina delicacy and beauty in \"The Lake on Fire.\" whom I actually had a contract told me Elenbogen (\"Drawn From I was taken by unexpected details in (granted it was a somewhat different version), Water\") and Will Boast (\"Daphne\"). November 18 ordinary situations, such as: \"It felt rude \"This isn't what people expect from you, you to chew while she listened to something can't do history,\" and I confess I put it back in 66 so weighty but she thought her meat and my desk drawer a little longer. So, with some her pale, golden potatoes kept her from good advice from my early readers, and flying off, unmoored, toward the ceiling.\" because of their enthusiasm, I picked it up How do you balance plot and character? again, did some revisions, and this time I took Internality and external movement? it to a press that I thought might appreciate I began as a poet, so the cadence of lines like the writing if nothing else. that is something I really strive for; listen for. As for the balance you speak of, especially for a I love your publisher, Sarabande Books. How did this relationship come about? writer like me, for whom plot is never as The editor of Sarabande, the woman who interesting as character, action—the story such as it is, the \"this and then this\" —pretty started it and has run it for almost twenty-five years,Sarah Gorham, is a poet and a gorgeous- much emerges from who I'm creating and trying to understand: What would this person ly elegant essayist, who simply trusts what she loves. I decided that I just didn't have time to do in this situation? The situation is mostly there to provoke a response, because it's the shop this unwieldy thing around and hear the same refrain about sticking to what people response that defines character. If nothing happens, there's nothing to react to. So says presumably \"expected\" of me, so I asked myself which small presses I really liked and, the reluctant plot-maker! (Somebody once though they mostly do poetry, short fiction and gave me a little pin in the shape of a grave- stone that said on it \"My plot.\") By the way, in essays, Sarabande was at the top of the list. It's four of my novels (“The Autobiography of My been a dream! Instant appreciation and a contract and wonderful care and nurturing. I'm Mother,” “Tender Mercies,” “Before and After” and “Half a Heart”), the significant action still flabbergasted by the early pre-publication reviews. Could this possibly be the ugly has already taken place before the book begins, out of sight. The rest is response. Not duckling I thought I had borne? It feels unreal.Newcity NOVEMBER 2018 so this one, I promise. It's a story about growing up and choosing a life, and that's not “The Lake on Fire” By Rosellen Brown just a response, it's a process. Sarabande Books, 310 pages, $17.95 Books and language are central to the Rosellen Brown will read at 7:30pm on story. You teach in the MFA program at November 19 at the Hyde Park Historical the School of the Art Institute, at a time Society Book Club, 5529 South Lake Park, where image seems to be dominating (773)493-1893 and will be in conversation with written text. What do the written word and Sharon Solwitz on December 6 at Bookends books mean to you? and Beginnings, 1712 Sherman Avenue, Well, this is a rather nineteenth-century novel, Alley #1, Evanston, (224)999-7722.
Photo: Joe MazzaMusic Oh, to Be a Violent Femme The Outsider Origins of an Iconic Band By R. Clifton Spargo Violent Femmes’ first album turned signal. The band’s name alone scared off heard one of the songs play from the turntable thirty-five this spring. It’s long since gone platinum, and outlets like Rolling Stone middle-of-the-dial folks, and that first album behind the counter, I might have asked the commonly tally it among the all-time great debuts. If you’d told me back in 1983—as I cover—with the barefooted little girl in the guy working the counter whether he’d heard was picking the LP out of a bin at my local record store—that the band with the dement- white dress, half waif, half phantom, peering anything new I should listen to. Just as likely, I ed moniker was destined for such accolades, into a ramshackle building—was as creepy as bought the record because the name was so you’d have broken my heart a little. Like so stupidly cool. The second Femmes LP, many lovers of the nascent indie movement, I the premise of the band. Was the little girl lived for the thrill of browsing record stores for supposed to be a Violent Femme? What was a “Hallowed Ground,” appeared less than a year hours, encountering music through the later, every bit as daring—if anything, stranger listening-station headphones, flipping through Violent Femme, anyway? bins of vinyl in search of unheard-of bands still, leaning darker into country blues and a making songs meant to live on the margins. No band stood for the liminal more than “When I was growing up on the west side of style of forbidden grotesque. I played those Violent Femmes. Milwaukee,” bassist Brian Ritchie would two records nonstop. No band I ever played Violent Femmes were the coming-of-age of alt music before it had a name. There was just explain in early interviews on local radio and TV, on my Sansui stereo drew the ire of lovers of enough taboo in their style and lyrics, and in “we called a sissy or a wimp—well, that’s what The Doors, The Who and CCR the way the Gordon Gano’s godforsaken voice, to Femmes could. “I stood right up in the heart of guarantee you were listening to rock ’n’ roll as we called a femme.” Violent + Femme: it was always meant to be: offensive to basically, it’s a contradiction, Ritchie explained. hell,” Gano wailed from my speakers, “I never someone. Mainstream radio wouldn’t touch tell”—and out would come the twentysome- them. That went without saying. The Femmes The name evokes bad-gendered macho resided at the lower end of the FM dial, on things pounding on my dorm-room door like a college stations with a ten-mile broadcasting bullshit. But the three guys on stage playing NOVEMBER 2018 Newcity that punked-up, old-time rock ’n’ roll put the bunch of suburban parents, shouting, “Turn target on their own backs. They were suddenly that shit down.” the Femmes, channeling violence, manifesting it as music, culture in contradiction with itself. It’s hard these days to convey the simple The Femmes were speaking the turmoil of the offense the Violent Femmes were to 1980s eternal picked-on teen in all of us, fighting off musical culture. Now that they’re heralded as a classic band, assimilated by long-tradition the shame of adolescence. listeners into roots music, you could almost I bought that first Femmes record as though it be forgiven for miscalculating the degree of was my own secret finding. My eye might have radicalism that was in their stripped-down, punked-out sound. Gordon Gano’s voice been caught by the album art, I might have 67
came at you like the bleating of some frustrated sexuality. In “Add It Up,” Gano is testosterone-deprived adolescent, as shrill as teenaged lust personified, as he torments a cold shower, some sort of country-western himself about not being able to get one kiss, yodel on speed, his overly sharpened plaints one screw, one fuck, but the confusion in his sexuality isn’t just about unreciprocated desire. giving way nevertheless to resolute, even There’s an uncertainty in his idea of him- pristine, notes. The lyrics, sometimes self—“something won’t let me make love to bubblegum simple, sometimes demented, you”—that gives existential urgency to the MUSIC TOP 5 always desperate, were in a cantankerous plain sexual yearning, much in the way the 1 Saba. Concord Music tumble of guitar and stand-up bass and Hall. TThe West Side snare drum, the whole thing so elemental you lament in “Kiss Off” slides from \"'cause you left rapper hosts the second me\" to \"I lost God\" to, of yeah, “Everything, annual John Walt Day benefit, had the feeling you were listening to rock ’n’ named for his late cousin and everything, everything.” Stake enough on any major influence, with roll before anyone knew what it was—per- proceeds going to Chicago given desire and everything becomes ultimate. youth. November 24 haps the evil twin of rock ’n’ roll—as though Elvis had some punk cousins he wouldn’t let The closest thing to a radio hit on that debut, 2 Lucinda Williams. complete its own kitschy MTV video, was Thalia Hall. For the into his band. twentieth anniversary of her “Gone Daddy Gone,” which, imagine this, was seminal album “Car Wheels On a Gravel Road,” the At its best the sound of the Femmes has a punk song featuring not only the laddering country-blues legend and her band BUICK 6 perform the always clung to the spirit of the impromptu. optimism of a xylophone but a full-fledged entire album to benefit the Oak Park River Forest Food Call it folk punk, call it skiffle music, call it xylophone solo. Pantry. November 16 discomfited, soulful blues turned raucous and 3 Rosanne Cash. Old unreliable. The opening of that 1983 debut is a When the trio of Gano, Ritchie and drummer Town School. The boy longing to approach a girl who’s out of his Victor DeLorenzo were starting out, they impeccably pedigreed country busked on sidewalks outside the same singer-songwriter tours her league, but he loses his nerve. Immediately highly anticipated new release, Gano retreats into daydreams and teen-aged Milwaukee theaters and concert halls that “She Remembers Everything,” highs and summer sunlight—yes, “Blistering In wouldn’t book them. One such session in her first in five years. front of the Oriental Theatre caught the November 9-10 the Sun”—and we’re guided by a tight little hook that beats, almost childishly, in the exact attention of James Honeyman-Scott and 4 John Medeski’s Mad same rhythm and notes as the lyrics. Halfway Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, earning Skillet. Evanston Space. through, the song bottoms out into a bedroom the Femmes an invitation to open that night The latest project by jazz for punk’s newest limelight band. Contrary to keyboardist Medeski is a secret, the vocals more breath than mu- shaggy, funk-and-fusion, legend, fame didn’t follow immediately. “It’s a after-party-vibe ensemble sic—“Body and beats, I stain my sheets, I that’s touring to promote the true story,” Gano said in a 2015 Spin release of its self-titled debut don’t even know why”—and we’re so far album. November 7 inside the shame and longing and mixed-mes- interview, “but it wasn’t a break.” It didn’t saged confusion of teen-aged (or, maybe just lead to gigs, or to a record deal. For much of 5 Andy Shauf. the set that night the hometown Femmes Constellation. Touring his American) sexuality that our only options are latest, nearly literary album, were actually booed. One of the reasons, I “The Party,” the Canadian sympathy or running away. singer-songwriter shares the suspect, that fans remain so fond of that stage with assorted indelible characters—attendees at the The second track, “Kiss Off,” establishes the piece of lore, often positioned as a discovery album’s titular soirée. November 29-30 record to come. In seductive talk-singing story, is the image it preserves of three young 68 reminiscent of Lou Reed—a major influence on, punks playing traditional instruments in some and later a fan of, the band—Gano adopts the slightly deranged form of rock and street folk persona of the picked-on loser telling everyone for audiences who—if they bother to stop at who’s rejected him past and future to kiss off, all—might not have a clue as to what they waxing philosophical about it because they do it think about the music they’re hearing. (that is, reject him) all the time, yeah, yeah. At the center of the song there’s a mini-revolution: It’s all in the service of the idea of a band so an improv jam breaks out, each band member out there, so indifferent to what the main- stream is saying about them, that rock history playing whatever line he feels like playing, Ritchie knocking out a lead bass part, Gano a might have missed them entirely. The Femmes lead guitar, with seemingly little regard for what were unglamorous, decidedly off-kilter, even ugly in self-presentation— frontman Gano’s the other is doing. It’s gorgeous cacophony, effete demeanor and choirboy face and jazzy, reminiscent of the Velvets if they had squeaky pubescent voice adding to the effect. hailed from a town ninety miles south of “Violent Femmes” went platinum slowly, over a Nashville. The Femmes would develop the technique in a format they called the “horns of great many years, as if by word of mouth, without actually making the Billboard charts dilemma,” regularly inviting local musicians to except for a very brief period eight years after jam with them in concert, in the middle of the album’s release. songs, unrehearsed. At any given show, characters unknown to the audience have joined the band for the night. In true punk style, In the wake of their early college radio success, the fourth wall of performance gets torn down. the Femmes would often begin a show inNewcity NOVEMBER 2018 What is performance, after all, if not a delighted procession down the center aisle of a theater amateur rushing the stage? Whether she gets like some high school Mardi Gras band. (I can still remember the wonderful pomp and there or not is but a distinction of degree. silliness of it.) The point seemed to be, in true There’s not a faltering step on “Violent punk spirit, that they were fans first, emerging Femmes;” it is truly one of the great rock from nowhere, likely to return whence they debuts, higher even than Rolling Stone rates it. came, as if there were no difference between stage and stands. The Femmes can pull off countrified reggae with slightly bubblegum lyrics (“Tell you, mon, I’m stuck on this lovely girl”), just as readily as November 4, 7:30pm at The Vic, 3145 North Sheffield, jamusa.com/thev-vic; $37-$50, 18+ they can issue desperate, anthemic odes to
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carols in favor of paying tribute to even earlier hipsters’ endeavors. T'isn’t Quite the Season Jane Lynch’s 2016 “A Swingin’ Little Christ- mas” is one meta undertaking, reminding us Confronting Christmas Music in November that before her star-making turn in “Glee,” Lynch was a regular cast member of By Robert Rodi Christopher Guest’s sardonic, pomo mocku- mentaries (“Best In Show,” “A Mighty Wind,” etcetera). “A Swingin’ Little Christmas” is smart, polished and very enjoyable, but it’s also utterly professional in its evocation of the bright, brassy sound of the fifties, and the so-tight-they’re-scraping-the-paint-job harmonies of vocal groups like the Mel-Tones and the Modernaires. (As in her cabaret show, “See Jane Sing,” Lynch is accompanied by fellow vocalists Tim Davis and Kate Flannery, and by the Tony Guerrero Quintet). In common with Guest’s films, there’s as much sincerity as satire here; the whole thing is one broad wink, but it’s a wink of invitation. Finger-snappin’, Sinatra-esque takes on “We Three Kings” and “Good King Wenceslas” are even more culturally irrelevant now than they were sixty years ago, but that doesn’t make them any less exhilarating. Possibly the half-century-plus remove even makes it easier to indulge. You’ll have the chance to do so in the flesh on November 30, when Lynch and company take the tunes to City Winery (7pm, 1200 West Randolph, $55-$75). If you’re reading this early in November, I recognize that Christmas is built on a complex Similarly, hometown guitarist Joel Paterson’s you might yet have been spared. But the annual “Hi-Fi Christmas” evokes in its very title its aim onslaught of holiday music, which carpets the series of integrated traditions (fancy greeting entire culture in a bubbling, high-fructose lava of returning to a distant pre-digital age when flow, begins earlier every year, seeping farther cards, gift exchanges, an elaborate family back into the calendar from the traditional audio equipment qualified as furniture. post-Thanksgiving launch that now there’s a fair dinner), and that ritual behavior is part of the chance by goddamn Halloween you’ll have Paterson released the album on CD a year already been ear-wormed by “Silver Bells.” So holiday’s appeal. So fine, yes, break out that eager are the purveyors of this music to foist it ago a vinyl version debuts this month, and on on us as soon as public tolerance will allow, that beat-up Bing Crosby Santa-hat LP for one instead of building toward a satisfying November 28 Paterson takes to the stage at crescendo come December 25, the whole more spin, I get it. What baffles me is the overblown cacophony will have collapsed Space (1245 Chicago Avenue, Evanston) to already into limp and gasping exhaustion before market for more-more-more of this fare from any Christmas goose is cooked (or perhaps artists whose persuasions and personae seem mark the occasion. He’s accompanied by local even slaughtered). Christmas music shoots its antithetical to it. (Eric Clapton released a holiday virtuosi Beau Sample on bass and Alex Hall on wad well before Christmas arrives. album. The man who gave us “Layla” has now drums, with guest shots by Oscar Wilson on covered “Away In a Manger”—possibly a sign of vocals and Chris Foreman on the Hammond It’s the oddest category of music—a genre in B3. The album’s tracks are mainly mid-century name only, given that the works it encompass- coming Apocalypse.) So voracious is the es share no defining form, structure or style. material—“White Christmas,” “Blue Christmas,” There’s not even any thematic unity, as it Christmas-music market that virtually every includes both secular hey-look-it’s-snowing! artist is sucked into its maw. I mean, Bob Dylan, “Mele Kalikimaka”—as best suits Paterson’s tunes like “Winter Wonderland” and entirely litur- playing, which is in the sparkling, high-electric gical pieces like “O Come, O Come, Emmanu- for God’s sake. Billy Idol. Twisted Sister. el.\" Nowhere else on the musical landscape do style of Bo Diddley, Chet Atkins and other novelty tunes survive for clearly unwarranted spans. It’s a safe guess that it’s been decades I’m willing to consider that the ubiquity of golden-age guitar gods. But Paterson has his since you were subjected to ephemera like “Wipeout” or “Gitarzan,” but just try and get Christmas music may function as a panicked own sonic touches, as in “I’ll Be Home for through a Yuletide without being ambushed by “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” Songs response to the brevity of the season. You’ve Christmas,” where his big, gorgeous chords that in a different context would be regarded as just a notch above kitsch, like “Santa Baby” got so much of the stuff, and if you don’t play it sneak up on you from the merest whisper. And and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” have acquired, in now, it’s all just going to sit there for another ten he takes the unusual step of rendering the the Christmas-music bubble, the gravitas of obvious tune for this project—“Jingle Bell Gershwin. months. Likewise, there’s the theory that Christmas music triggers a purse-string-loosen- Rock” —into a kind of easygoing amble. He’s ing synapse that prompts stores to blare it at us a tremendously seductive player. His approach to the material differs from the affectionate the moment we innocently cross their thresholds. (Although Mariah Carey shrieking “O irony ladled out by Lynch: Paterson genuinely Holy Night” while I pluck my bag of quinoa from sees these tunes as valid platforms for musicalNewcity NOVEMBER 2018 invention. the shelf at Whole Foods seems more an incentive to cash out and flee than to linger over Space is a smaller venue than City Winery, and the display of aged Gouda.) I have no doubt Paterson’s gig will be more Possibly it’s an indication of cultural deca- intimate than Lynch’s megawatt variety show. dence (or just a critic’s crotchets) that among Certainly one or the other is a good fit for you; and I encourage you to order up some tickets the only interesting additions to the Christ- while you can. If you’re going to be smothered mas-music sinkhole are a pair of recent by Christmas music in November, it might as releases which skip over the usual hipster well be on your own terms. tradition of crafting pop covers of venerable70
Stage STAGE TOP 5 1This Bitter Earth. About Face Theatre. Deep love is challenged by divisive political realities when the choices of a black playwright are called into question by his boyfriend, a white Black Lives Matter activist. Opens November 8Mikael Burke/Photo: April Harnish 2 Plainclothes. Broken Nose Theatre. After an incident with a shoplifter ends with half their team either fired or in the hospital, the loss-prevention department of a downtown Chicago retail store comes under investigation. Opens November 12 What is the \"Right Way\" 3 Wife Material. to Be Black? Underscore Theatre Company. Jamie Shriner brings Director Mikael Burke foregrounds the experiences her comedic chops and of the marginalized pop-music sensibility to an autobiographical musical about By Emma Couling the pressures and constraints put on young women. Opens November 13 Up-and-coming director Mikael Burke has But I believe changing the world is as simple 4 Rightlynd. Victory Gardens arrived with a flurry of activity. Though he has as changing the story. It is my mission as a Theater. One woman tries not yet finished with his MFA at DePaul director and creator to make theater that to use her street smarts and University, he has already been named the brings the experiences of the marginalized, the raw determination to save the first-ever artistic fellow at Northlight Theatre. disenfranchised, the othered, to the fore- Chicago neighborhood she Additionally, he is directing not one, but two ground. I make plays that are vivid and loves. But will the political shows this month: \"Hooded, Or Being Black surprising and complex, like the characters machine turn her into the very For Dummies\" at First Floor Theater and \"This inside them and the world they reflect. The person she is trying to destroy? Bitter Earth\" at About Face Theatre. The stories that fascinate me are those of people Opens November 16 shows use inter- and intra-racial dynamics to like myself, navigating and overcoming the engage with the idea of what it means to be visible and invisible systems designed to keep 5 HeLa. Sideshow Theatre NOVEMBER 2018 Newcity black in the twenty-first century. Given his so many of us down. I tell stories to rewrite the Company. Three stories demanding but satisfying schedule, Mikael story being told. Every play gives us a glimpse connect, collide and expand, generously found time to talk with Newcity into someone else's life as they undergo and blending Afrofuturism, the true about art, education and having hope in a dark move through some big change or personal story of Henrietta Lacks and timeline. shift. We get to experience their journey one little girl's love of science. alongside them, all the while asking ourselves, J. Nicole Brooks' new play Why theater? What's your personal \"Would I behave the same way if it were me?\" explores who has the power mission statement? We watch and wonder why people do what over the stuff we are made of. Stories and narratives define us. As a queer they do. This is why theater is able to change Opens November 23 black man, I so often find myself at odds with minds and alter hearts. When we come to the society’s narrative of who I can or cannot be. theater, we find ourselves stepping into one 71
another’s shoes and we walk in them for a people, I believe arts education and the arts in University, but, education aside, I am spell. We open ourselves to another's general give young people the gift of their continually struck by the vibrancy of this perspective and experience, while broadening/ fullest selves and a platform on which to be theater community, its tenacity in challenging deepening/challenging our own, ultimately heard and seen. and upending harmful, non-inclusive produc- proving that despite our perceived differences tion practices, and for not only demanding but and our many truths, we are all simply and \"Hooded\" addresses themes of racial creating and fostering a theatrical landscape fallibly human. identity. Can you share with us your take that is as rich, varied and multifaceted as the on why this play is vital to the artistic and communities whom we reflect. It's thrilling and You’re an arts educator as well as an public conversation in this moment? heartening to be in this city working alongside artist. Why is arts education vital? How In turns both hilarious and deeply unsettling, such amazing talent as we remain at the can arts education enrich the lives of this razor-sharp sitcom takes a hard look at a forefront of this cultural sea change a students? facet of the black experience not too often long-time-coming. Art-making is subjective. There is no real right explored on stage: what is the right way to \"be or wrong, the antithesis to the test-score-fo- black.\" Is it a cultural thing? An environmental What's next? What are your dreams and cused realm of \"school.\" For me, this is the thing? Or is it simply a matter of being? wishes for the future? importance of arts education. It is a place Ultimately though, the play demands that we I love to say I’m living the dream because I am where process proves more important than look beyond those semantics to recognize the doing what I love. I’m directing plays and I’m product, where investigation, questioning and one glaring, unsettling truth about being black teaching my art. When I think about what the experimentation—true learning—really in this country: that at any moment, our lives future may hold in store, I only wish for more of happens. Arts education instills in young can be stolen from us by some \"well-meaning\" the same. Continued opportunities to make people the confidence to develop, assert and citizen or officer, and the world just keeps on beautiful, provocative theater and spaces to defend their own ideas and opinions. And that spinning. We fall in love with these characters, offer that gift to the next generation of artists confidence in themselves and their voice, in and we're forced to watch them fall victim to and makers. turn, enables them to readily face the the truth of this country's relationship to black vulnerability of risk and failure time and again. lives. The play is, unfortunately still extremely What's giving you hope in this tough That ability to risk leads to creative thinking timely in content, consistently surprising in political time? and problem-solving, generating innovation structure and style, and while laughs abound, We are in a dark timeline, and sometimes it’s and the desire to question. That desire to we in the audience are forced to face our difficult for me to see the light for all the dark. question necessitates self-discipline and a complicity head on. But what continues to give me hope is seeing command of one’s own practice and person. the work being produced in this town, the Students learn those same skills that will serve You're from Nashville. What drew you to questions that we are asking our audiences to them throughout the rest of their lives Chicago? What's unique about Chicago grapple with, and the community of visibility regardless of their career path. All in all, when theater or the Chicago theater community? and respect that we uphold. A single play may so much of the adult world refuses to I initially came to Chicago to get my MFA in not change the world but it may change a life, acknowledge the ideas and opinions of young directing from The Theatre School at DePaul and what is the world but many, many lives? Songwriter of the Year - iTunesNewcity NOVEMBER 2018 with PETER OYLOE Tickets: 773-935-6875 | www.athenaeumtheatre.org 72
CHICAGO “CHRISTMASARCHITECTURE FOR HAS A NEW ADDRESS. JOYTHE A NEW NAME. A NEW HOME. SOUL” AND 85 TOURS TO CHOOSE FROM. –Chicago ParentCAC IS THE PLACE FOR ALL THINGS ARCHITECTURE IN CHICAGO. NOW OPENJ. Keener Photography ADAPTED BY TOM CREAMER DIRECTED BY HENRY WISHCAMPER NOVEMBER 17 – DECEMBER 30 312.443.3800 NOVEMBER 2018 Newcity GoodmanTheatre.org GROUPS OF 15+ ONLY: 312.443.3820 Major Corporate Corporate Sponsor Partner Corporate Sponsor Media Partner Sponsor and Sensory-Friendly Partners Performance Sponsor 73
Newcity NOVEMBER 2018 Life is BeautifulBy David Alvarado74
3V0 Aenrdtoisrasn ALL UNDER ONE ROOF DINE IN OR TAK E OUT FOR A COMPLETE LIST OFVENDORS, EVENTS, HAPPY HOUR SPECIALS & LIVE MUSIC, VISITCHICAGOFRENCHMARKET.COM 131 North Clinton, Chicago (Between Randolph and Washington) Monday – Friday 7:00 a.m. – 7:30 p.m.Saturday 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. Sunday closed.
1 231 MCA STAGE: 2 MARISOL 3 WEST BY MCACHICAGO.ORG/LOOKISHMAEL MIDWESTHOUSTON-JONES, BRUNCH, LUNCH, #MCAMadeYouLookRALPH LEMON, DINNER, AND DRINKS NOV 17, 2018 OPEN UNTIL 9 PM TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYSAND BEBE MILLER FREE FOR YOUTH 18 AND UNDER MARISOLCHICAGO.COM –JAN 27, 2019 CMCohunicsteaeugmmopoofrary ArtRELATIONS Photo: John Neil Burger. Anna Halprin and Lawrence Halprin, “Ritual Celebration,” Kentfield, CA.NOV 2–3, 2018 Halprin Summer Workshop, day thirteen, July 13, 1968 (detail). The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania, by the gift of Lawrence Halprin.Bebe Miller and Cynthia Oliver.Photo: Julieta Cervantes.
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