LIT TOP 5 Lit 1 Anne Carson. Mandel Happy in “False Bingo,” and Jemc talked about Hall, University of Chicago. Stories happy stories, complicating the idea of Anne Carson gives the first of pastoral writing, Greek classics, the guilty three public lectures, “Stillness”; Jac Jemc’s “False Bingo” pleasures of television, microaggressions free admission is first-come, and the art of crafting good sentences. first-served. December 3 By Tara Betts I was really intrigued with “Gladness 2 Tomi Adeyemi. Gary Or Joy” because it grapples with the Comer Youth Center. idea of telling and hearing happy stories. The author reads from “Children If there’s a happy story you love, please of Virtue and Vengeance,” the tell me more about it. sequel to the bestselling YA novel “Children of Blood and Jac Jemc has written much of her This is a great question, and I just read DECEMBER 2019 Newcity Bone.” December 10 work while living in the city of Chicago. such a story from Nina MacLaughlin’s new Her second story collection, “False Bingo,” retelling of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” “Wake, 3 Willie Perdomo. Poetry is another imaginative foray that offers a Siren: Ovid Resung.” The story is called Foundation. Willie Perdomo follow-up to her critically acclaimed “The “Baucis” and it’s a retelling of “Baucis and reads from his latest poetry Grip of It”—her 2017 novel rooted in a Philemon,” and it’s all good in there. There’s collection “The Crazy Bunch.” couple’s encounter with a haunted house. sadness in the story, but the sadness is Jemc, who recently started a new post as shared between two people in such a way December 11 a professor at University of California-San that it feels conflict-less. Diego and is preparing for the release of her 4 Nami Mun, Kevin Coval next novel “Total Work of Art” in 2021, A compelling story for me was and Jennifer Steele. spoke with Newcity about “False Bingo.” “Pastoral,” which starts with the main Hungry Brain. The three poets A few stories draw on supernatural elements character filming a sexually explicit read as part of the Sunday Reading Series. December 15 5 Aaron Cohen. 2112 Chicago. Cohen discusses his book “Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power,” which chronicles the history of soul music artists in Chicago from the 1960s through the 1980s. December 18 51
Live at The Book Cellar scene with another actor to a certain extent, I think. I was set in an artificially pastoral just staying with a friend over the 12 Days of Bookmas Critics Pick: scene. The story then makes weekend and she’s so declara- Favorite Books of 2019 a transition into her real life tive and I felt so alive with her. Participate in the daily theme as a family-oriented pastoral I aspire to that. In the meantime, to enter to win an “A Christmas with Elizabeth Taylor, scene underscored with I love a variety of sentences. Story” leg lamp! Diego Baez, Walton Muyumba italicized quotes from Virgil Sometimes I trick my way into December 1-12 and Jennifer Prokop and Theocritus that punctuate a sentence with language-gather- December 7, 6pm passages like haibun. So, ing and pre-writing. Sometimes Shop Late Lincoln Square the quotes from classical I just say it like it is. I play with Von Steuben Cabaret Night: Greeks evoke pastorals much patterns and rhythm and run-ons with special deals like the ancient Japanese and fragments. Sometimes I let December 5, 12 & 19, 6-9pm It’s the True Kind of Love nature-oriented poems of December 11, 5pm haiku and haibun. I’d love to Tallgrass Writer’s Guild hear your thoughts on that. Storytime with Miss Tonya! presents “Winter Fashions” This is terribly embarrassing, featuring Martin Altman, December 13, 11am but I was unaware of haibun as Whitney Scott and a form until now. Thank you for Joe Weintraub Writer’s Studio making me aware of it. My goal December 5, 7pm Open House/Open Mic ultimately was to illuminate the notion of the pastoral— Storytime with Miss Jamie! December 16, 6pm an ancient ideal of life—with a profession and lifestyle that is December 6, 11am Jeffrey Brown presents usually loaded with all sorts of preconceived notions of trauma Amanda Auerbach “Rey & Pals” and shame. By using the actual December 20, 4:30pm quotes from Greek pastoral “What Need Have We for at Davis Theater poetry, I hoped to highlight Such As We” and how visceral that ideal is and how it can be translated into Janelle Effiwatt modern life outside of the country, if we can just subtract “Like a Thin Hustle” the elements of toxic masculinity December 6, 7pm and sanctified motherhood. Photos with Santa! I love that premise. Also, throughout “False Bingo,” you December 7, 11am aren’t just talking about these speculative and supernatural Go to our website for event details, book clubs and more! moments, but the dark little things people do in everyday Your Independent Book Store in Lincoln Square! life. How did that develop as an idea as you were writing? 4736-38 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago 773.293.2665 • bookcellarinc.com I’m guilty of being an observer in my own life. When people IN THE FORMER BOOKMAN’S ALLEY SPACE AT behave badly, I silently thrill at the myself boldly state something 1712 SHERMAN AVE, EVANSTON opportunity to bear witness to it. that I’m not sure is accurate and So many of life’s horrors, if we’re sometimes I meander around 224.999.7722 lucky, I guess, are microaggres- something that is more certain. sions. I’m interested in the way I love manipulating sentences Newcity DECEMBER 2019 haaovnerdafufWfunalhlrvyaioswfsietasinuyndggcgmhaeaoscitnnhieo-aysnortmsfto,foriaeynanoghfudeasrahhchdoeaalqppenupswdasyhsrot?tenoerrletisnat, hekweeahglsegtinafotrfy-ifotwhiursmacfporipueilnnddgly people bond over bad behavior. toward the goals and themes of wYbhoooTubolhe’okliloscstakoohlsmwro,ealmwiyBdrusaiontyfoijiinketnsygweedantejaoshdlorusecynra&bn,irneaeEBslfvostuea,ulgpnclriyoslncestcnoovsuiieznbnryr’algsegatsmeilgfludetiarfsyggst,ieescbaltsaenyolycdrstioenhihu.odoantpenoppodeigfcnnirtvgadhefeletoynebcotdaeulsrlty. In pulling this collection together, each individual story. Playing with I was thinking about different language and thinking about the afnordVogfcisihgfittialtmdsohunreeegsSngctm’eoshsmabatlitoilonoonBgkfsufdgesfariurnoyroesmufsofsBnlfiSeanftataesitmoyufnuirBladnyilarlfhyydoo,,rrlNpeiadcllouoalvsygaengamteii5zmsbepededrmu. a3ruid0nteh,gmoro scales of evil, and how we seek unit of the sentence is the most out even very minor evils in fun part for me. Order online 24/7 and find more info at others to absolve ourselves of the guilt of not being perfect. If there is one, or even WWW.BOOKENDSANDBEGINNINGS.COM several, what guilty pop 52 I appreciate that you don’t culture pleasures inspire shy away from a straightfor- your writing? ward, declarative sentence. I’d love to hear your thoughts So many, but I’ll answer about creating sentences. simply: “The Real Housewives”— all of them—and “Columbo.” Thank you! I love declarative sentences in fiction because Yes, the television gives us I’m always tempering my own other storytelling too! What’s opinions and even factual a bit of advice that you’d give statements in real life. It’s a people who want to write conditioned part of being female, speculative fiction and how does that differ from writing a more realistic story for you? I don’t think about this line between speculative fiction and realistic fiction when I’m writing a story, and perhaps my greatest bit of advice is that other writers don’t either. Write what the story wants to be. Wherever it lands on that spectrum is where it belongs.
Music Newcity DECEMBER 2019 LDosuaLloYbuoles’ Los Lobos has been doing December And it’s become multigenerational. I can’t think shows at City Winery “about as long as of any other city in America where we have December Residency, there has been a City Winery,” notes band the undying and true love that we’ve gotten Christmas Album saxophonist, keyboardist and co-producer from Chicago.” Steve Berlin, who joined the legendary By Dennis Polkow Mexican-American band in 1983. In fact, And yet despite nearly a decade of Los the three Los Lobos shows December 8 Lobos doing annual pre-Christmas December through 10 will be the eighth annual end- shows not only in Chicago but across the of-year band appearances at the venue. country, the one thing missing? Oddly enough, Christmas music. “Chicago is really—and I don’t say this lightly—our second home. I mean it, it’s “Performing Christmas music and doing a like our favorite place to play, it’s our best Christmas album was something we had been market, every show is like a family reunion talking about as a band for many, many years. there. We’re never not looking forward to But we needed some extra help. And clearly coming back to Chicago. The city has always with all these Christmas shows, it’s really been incredibly welcoming and gracious something we should have been thinking and treats us as if we were one of their own. about when we started doing them all. But Generations of Chicagoans have grown up generally, by that time of the year, no one is in with our music in a way that’s kind of unlike the mood to write or rehearse or any of the any other city in America, I have to say. other stuff. So, it was the right time, the right 54
place, the right everything to make it happen with an hour of stories about something or MUSIC TOP 5 this time, as opposed to all the other times. somebody that happened, ‘Hey, remember that time when…’ So, the whole vibe was 1 Richard Thompson. “A lot of times it takes someone outside of pretty warm and fuzzy. It brought back a lot Evanston SPACE. Any the band to make things happen. Some- of memories every day just going to work time the near-legendary elder body comes to us with an offer, or in this there. It was pretty cool.” statesman of British folk makes case, a label actually put all the pieces a Chicago appearance, it’s an together. So that was the impetus. We While the rest of Los Lobos grew up with the essential event. December 28-31 talked about it, but it was never going Christmas traditions of East L.A., Berlin grew to happen unless somebody else said, up in Philadelphia. “We were Jewish, so there 2 Bettye Lavette. Old Town ‘Here’s a budget, go do it.’ That’s not that was no Christmas at all when I was growing School of Folk Music. The unusual. We’re not exactly, I wouldn’t call up. In fact, we said the next album we do is Michigan-born singer-songwriter us entrepreneurial. Put it that way.” going to be called ‘Llegó Hanukkah.’” had to wait decades to become an institution, and you can hear Rhino Records approached Los Lobos in “Kidding,” he quickly adds. the travails and transcendence of May, but as Berlin notes, “they were originally her journey in that unmatchable, thinking of a record for Christmas of next “My wife is not Jewish, so we celebrate both. unmistakable voice. December 20 year. But then everything came together Hanukkah takes eight days, there is a quickly. It was kind of said in passing, ‘Hey, Christmas tree in my house, there’s always 3 Rodriguez. City Winery. if you guys could pull this off by the middle a Christmas tree in my house. Our kids grew The Detroit singer- of July, we can get it out this year.’ And it up with both traditions and we’re comfort- songwriter languished in obscurity just so happened that we had enough of a able with that. I can only imagine that there until the 2012 documentary window in our early summer schedule to are a lot of households that are very similar “Searching for Sugarman” revealed pull it off, so we went directly to work. to ours where both are celebrated. We enjoy Rodriguez was bigger than Elvis it, it’s a fun time of the year.” in South Africa. He’s ridden a “We have a couple of friends who are resurrection wave ever since. collectors of Latin Christmas music, so Was there ever the thought to do standard I reached out to them immediately and Christmas music? “You mean like chest- December 13 said, ‘Look, we have an all-hands-on-deck nut-type stuff? Our version of that was situation here, send me everything you’ve there was a lot of internal discussion as to 4 Whitney. Thalia Hall. got.’ We had 150 songs to pick from a whether or not we should bother with ‘Feliz Former Smith Westerns week later and then we weeded through Navidad.’ But you know, we do a song members and Chicago hometown and came up with some ideas. And then called ‘La Bamba’ that makes everybody heroes Julien Ehrlich and Max those ideas begat other ideas, which happy. So it’s not like we’re trying to do Kakacek tour their shimmering begat other ideas. some intellectual indie-rock version of a debut album, “Forever Turned Christmas record. We weren’t uncomfort- Around.” December 5-8 “Among the interesting things that we able. We feel there is a good mix of the discovered was that there’s a zillion Puerto traditional and the nontraditional and that’s 5 Erin Corine. Promontory. Rican Christmas songs. Every salsa band all we seek generally.” The Chicago singer there ever was has at least one—and conquers genres—including jazz, sometimes more than one—Christmas From the beginning of the project, Los soul, funk and R&B—with the record. And oddly enough, in the Mexican Lobos made clear that there would not be kind of silken tones and easy self- tradition, there’s really not that much by any originals on the album. “But then as we assurance that recall legends, comparison. We obviously did choose a got toward the end, Dave [Hidalgo] and while remaining tantalizingly her couple, but there were a million Puerto Louie [Perez] put their heads together and own. December 4 Rican songs to pick from and way less thought, ‘Why not? Let’s see if we can write than a million Mexican Christmas songs, one because it’s kind of a neat trick to come or Colombian and Christmas songs from up with a Christmas song.’ So they came other parts of Latin America. So that was up with ‘Christmas and You,’ which is one kind of interesting.” of my favorite songs on the record. “Usually stuff in Lobo world takes way “The original arrived very late, that was like DECEMBER 2019 Newcity longer than it should. And this album, for the very, very last thing we did. But that’s whatever reason, went way faster than it also a time-honored tradition for us: usually had any reason to, ridiculously fast: from the last song for the record is one of the offer to finished record it was two-and-a- best songs of the record. ‘Good Morning half months. The actual time in the studio Aztlán’ was the very last song [for the 2002 was probably not even three weeks.” album of the same name], we were done and ‘Well, maybe one more song.’ And then The location of the studio where “Llegó that. I don’t know. For some reason, we Navidad” was recorded was in the last always wait until the end to get the good place a band that began life in East L.A. stuff. But, you know, there we are.” would likely have expected: East L.A. As for what those who attend the Los “That was actually a big part of what made Lobos shows at City Winery can expect, it so easy. We found a studio two blocks Berlin says, “Obviously we’re going to be from where the guys grew up. It’s actually focused on this Christmas album, but we the cover of the record, which is a picture try to touch on every era, every record, in of a Christmas tree right on First Avenue in one way or another. We don’t do a set list downtown East L.A. And the studio was the anymore so I can’t tell you exactly what corner, literally the traffic light that you see we’re going to do, but generally we try to right on that corner. Every day would start go to part of everywhere we’ve been.” 55
Stage Commedia Delight The Conspirators’ Wm. Bullion and Sid Feldman on Their Stylized Approach to Theatricality By Hugh Iglarsh Newcity DECEMBER 2019 The Conspirators are a young theater Athenaeum, where they were finalizing While Bullion, who calls himself a “lifelong company with an old soul. Rooted deeply preparations for “Accidental Death of a Black storefront theater maker,” studied drama and in Chicago theater history, the group borrows Motorist,” their latest production. Both have later acted and directed at a number of local enthusiastically from just about every day jobs and were running on much coffee troupes, including Sliced Bread Productions, subversive aesthetic movement of the last and little sleep, but found the wherewithal to Prop Thtr, Akvavit, Babes with Blades century, from German expressionism and be effusively friendly and responsive. and Factory Theater (where he’s currently high modernism to absurdism and punk. marketing director), Feldman took another Bullion and Feldman both hail from Evanston, route. “I had no training in theater,” he says. What they have achieved with their first two where they met as teenagers almost forty years “I was a philosophy major at Loyola when major works—“The Resistible Rise of Herr ago. “We were both Mods,” says Feldman. I opened my own window-cleaning business Helmut Drumpf” in 2016 and “The Deckchairs, “We would go to the same concerts.” Their and dropped out of school.” Early on, or Make the Titanic Great Again” two years paths split during their college years, with Feldman got into the business side of the later—is nothing less than the revival of Bullion attending UCLA, where he fell in with arts, promoting nightclubs, managing bands political cabaret in Chicago, just when most Tim Robbins and other members of the Los and eventually producing plays. needed. Heavily influenced by the dramaturgy Angeles-based Actors’ Gang, and afterward of Bertolt Brecht, but in pacing and vibe more spent a year studying directing at the Goodman In the nineties, Feldman served as producer like the old Carol Burnett variety show, the School of Drama (now the Theatre School at at New Crime Productions, which imported Conspirators’ plays are goofily outrageous DePaul). The Actors’ Gang originated what’s the Style to Chicago. The high-concept, punky assemblages of satire, song, clowning and called simply “the Style,” a modern take on the troupe was meant to be a surrealistic slap in sketch comedy, which deliver their topical age-old Italian popular theater form known as the face of the local theater scene, but it ended commentaries with wit and verve. commedia dell’arte, which combines charac- up more as a launching pad and side project ter-based improv with a zany physicality. With its for such heavy-duty talents as John Cusack Director Wm. (Billy) Bullion and writer Sid rimshot punchlines, grotesquely plastered-on and Jeremy Piven. I reviewed New Crime’s Feldman are the Conspirators’ brain trust, makeup and emotionalized line delivery, the hyperkinetic 1989 staging, directed by Cusack, longtime friends and creative partners who Style also owes much to such lowbrow art of Yvan Goll’s Dada-inspired oddity “Methusa- share an approach honed over four decades forms as vaudeville, burlesque and Looney lem,” concluding that the play “won’t bore of theatrical troublemaking. I talked to the Tunes. Every Conspirators play is performed in you, but it may grate on your nerves,” which pair in a diner across the street from the the Style… but I’m getting ahead of myself. of course was the point. 56
New Crime got old and died in 1995, are losing subscribers as their audiences STAGE TOP 5 a victim of its own success, but not get older. But a vaudeville-ish style before doing “Accidental Death of draw draws everyone in, because it’s 1 The Buttcracker: A Nutcracker an Anarchist,” Nobel Prize-winning theatrical. Without that style, you might Burlesque. (sub)version playwright Dario Fo’s fact-based account as well watch it on PBS.” Echoes Bullion: productions. Chicago’s hottest of an Italian radical’s police-assisted “Theater has to be theatrical. It has to alternative holiday show subverts the “accidental” tumble from a high window. have some reason to exist as theater, classic ballet to promote diversity in The production made an impression. not as any other medium.” body, gender expression, sexuality and race. Opens December 5 In the meantime, Feldman had been And so the Conspirators forge ahead, bitten by the writing bug. “I was involved doing their own thing, challenging not 2 Cold Town/Hotline: A Chicago in theater, and I didn’t always like what just the reactionary political forces Holiday Story. Raven Theatre. I saw,” he says. “I thought I could do in society, but also the stodginess, A new local holiday tradition emerges better. So I started writing plays and cautiousness and narrowness of the with this world premiere comedy, which screenplays, and then I reconnected city’s theatrical establishment. explores the complex truths behind with Billy.” the adage, “It is better to give than to “Theater should be the thing that receive.” Opens December 6 By the middle of this decade, the two exorcises our demons collectively,” old friends felt the time was ripe for a says Bullion. “I love all those large 3 Burning Bluebeard. The new theater company. Says Bullion: questions asked by modernism. Ruffians & Porchlight Music “We were champing at the bit, feeling What’s missing now in theater are the Theatre. A Chicago holiday tradition like we wanted to do something rougher universal truths. All we get are the tribal since its debut in 2011, each and more significant.” ones. It’s tribalism that sells tickets. performance is a vaudevillian musical But you’ve dropped all critical and delight with a story that excavates As the presidential election loomed in self-critical thinking.” the poetic and poignant remains of 2016, the pair devised its takeoff of a piece of our city’s rich history. Brecht’s “The Resistible Rise of Arturo There’s no shortage of critique in the Ui,” performed in the Style. Recasting Conspirators’ radically irreverent work, Opens December 15 the villainous Ui—a melding of Hitler and which attacks everything from political Al Capone—in a Trumpian mode made chicanery to media idiocy to their own Brecht’s 1941 play both more relevant pretensions, all in a spirit that’s intellectu- and more resonant. ally serious but never solemn. “We want to create theater that’s The simplicity and informality of the 4 Working. Theo Ubique Cabaret magical in the Brechtian way, showing group, which holds no auditions but Theatre. Based on Studs Terkel’s the audience our tricks,” explains Bullion. does subject performers to demanding bestselling book of interviews with “But it’s not just clowning around,” workshops in the Style, are its strengths. American workers, this freshly updated adds Feldman. “There’s a serious eye musical paints a vivid portrait of the on reality.” “We’re reverse-privileged,” says Bullion. men and women that the world so “We don’t have to pay much rent, so we often takes for granted. Opens Which makes Dario Fo’s 1970 satire can be fast and loose.” such a natural fit for the cabaret troupe, December 16 after being retrofitted for 2019 Chicago. After three years, the Conspirators are “We’re doing that play, but we’re not well on the way to forming a community 5 Dance Nation. Steppenwolf DECEMBER 2019 Newcity doing that play,” says Feldman. “Here, of like-minded artists, which will make Theatre Company. Featuring we don’t have an anarchist problem, their collaborative theater-making a multigenerational cast of women like Italy. We have a cops killing black process easier and more fluent. playing the pre-teen dance troupe on people problem.” their way to Nationals in Tampa Bay, “To conspire literally means to breathe this Chicago premiere from Clare As with Fo’s original, the show will have together,” notes Bullion. And that’s their Barron is fiercely funny, theatrically its share of commedia-style playfulness, goal: Not only to come together inventive and full of heart. Opens as the troupe seeks to convey not just creatively as a company, but also to the viciousness of racism and police connect in a deep and meaningful way December 23 brutality, but also the absurdity and with their audience. hypocrisy of a system whose idea of serving and protecting too often “Theater should be an intimate experi- involves shooting first and lying later, ence,” says Feldman. “It should be like and which protects the perpetrators seeing a friend’s band, or going to some with a Mafia-like code of silence. underground event in occupied Paris during World War II,” says Feldman. Treating subjects as dark as police “It’s supposed to feel dirty and rough.” violence and encroaching fascism in a farcical manner may seem counter- On December 20 and 21, the troupe intuitive, not to mention inappropriate. will present “Ayn Rand’s ‘It’s a Wonderful But the two Conspirators argue Life’ as Performed by The Conspirators that such an exaggerated, stylized Under the Direction of Debbie Wasser- approach is dramatically necessary man Schultz,” a holiday show with to reach today’s theatergoers. variety acts, written by Sid Feldman and directed by Wm. Bullion. It will “Quizzical isn’t theatrically interesting,” be performed at the Charnel House, says Feldman. “Scared to death is. 3421 West Fullerton. For more Look, the big, serious theaters in town information, visit conspirewithus.org 57
Newcity DECEMBER 2019 Life is BeautifulBy David Alvarado 58
MADE YOU LOOK 1. SUN, DEC 1, 11 AM AND 1 PM WED, DEC 11, 6–7 PM FRI, DEC 20, 6–8 PM DRAG QUEEN STORY TIME AND TALK: ARTISTS AND SOUNDTRACK: ARIEL ZETINA BRUNCH: HOLIDAY EDITION ECONOMIES Chicago-based artists deejay A panel of artists, gallerists, and this once-a-month music series, Drag queens Lucy Stoole and scholars discuss the visible and enhancing your art viewing Kat Sass read family-friendly invisible economies that support with a live, exhibition-inspired books from the MCA Store over art as part of a series of talks soundtrack playing throughout seasonal brunch. Make a reser- related to Direct Message: Art, the museum. vation at marisolchicago.com. Language, and Power. No ticket purchase necessary. FREE FOR YOUTH 18 AND UNDER MUSEUM OF OPEN UNTIL 9 PM TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS MCA CONTEMPORARY ART #MCAMADEYOULOOK CHICAGO mcachicago.org/look
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