Newcity Chicago February 2021

FEBRUARY 2021 FEBRUARY 2021 Newcity 35th Anniversary Spectacular 1



FEBRUARY 2021 CONTENTS CuAltrutr&e FEBRUARY 2021 Newcity BUILT ON A BETTER BAGEL Art The past and future delicatessen DePaul Art Museum cracks open 8 the canon with Latinx initiative................... 4 0 Changing Identity Design Robert Rodi's journey from “gay novelist” to music editor Show your style 12 with locally made masks ............................. 4 4 Decisive Moment Dining & Drinking Catherine Edelman reflects on a thirty-three-year Peranakan food journey in conversation with Hadia Shaikh unites cultures at 4Kapitan............................. 6 14 Film The Idea of the Blues A thirty-year Frank Luby takes up the conversation meditation on movies................................... 4 8 he started thirty-five years ago in these pages Lit 20 John Porcellino is only A New Movement thirty years into his comics memoir........... 5 0 Sharon Hoyer finds that the state of dance is great and precarious Music 24 Daniel Knox goes Imperfect Union beyond the concept album 52.......................... Scoop Jackson surveys the relationship Stage of race and sports in Chicago 27 Brian Loevner has some tough-love ideas Midway to Java to save performing arts................................ 5 4 Ted C. Fishman’s obsession with the Javanese Reviews village in Chicago that once thrilled America As the culture carries on… 5........................... 6 32 3

Editor's Letter We have a weakness for nostalgia, which is why we approach anniversary issues of Newcity with trepidation. We know how MIRROR easy it is to fall into the black hole of memories. To avoid this, we've adopted the custom of looking forward, rather than back- TO THE ward, with our annual anniversary issues. FUTURE But we do have lessons we can learn from our history, so since this is something of a milestone anniversary, our thirty-fifth, we decided to combine the two. Taking as our premise \"Mirror to the Future,\" we tasked our writers with looking to the past to help us understand where we are today and where we might go from here. We hope you find the work as fulfilling and fun to read as we did to edit it. One of the joys of an issue like this is reconnecting with your past. In 1986, Frank Luby, a recently graduated editor of the University of Chicago Maroon, helped us get this crazy idea off the ground, and served as our first editor for ten issues over those first months. His piece in this issue, which revisits a lifelong obsession with the blues that he introduced to Newcity readers back then, is one of a very few he's contributed since. Other writers have stayed connected throughout, like Ted Fishman, who's not only continued to write for us off and on as his career has soared, but has become a dear personal friend outside of work. Robert Rodi has taken the unlikely path of meeting us long ago as a cover-story subject, and serving now as our music editor. And Ray Pride is our longest-serving editor, still helming the film section. is is the 1,411th issue we've published. Needless to say, we have thousands of folks, past and present, to thank for getting us here. And for the memories of moments we've shared in our journey. It hasn't been easy—our chosen field has seen its business model thoroughly disrupted since we started. But the joys of publishing great work, of seeing our \"kids\" soar in their careers, keeps us going. As do the little things. We got this card in the mail the other day, on an oth- erwise bleak day in both weather and in business. It came from a subscriber in Boulder, Colorado, who was renewing. \"Here's $130—two years sub money,\" he wrote, \"plus a tenspot to get an Italian beef at Al's #1 on Taylor Street.\"  For a brief moment, the sun started shining. Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 Brian & Jan Hieggelke 4

ON THE COVER Contributors Cover Design Dan Streeting TED C. FISHMAN (Writer, “Midway to Java”) is a Chicago-based writer and the Vol. 36, No. 1411 international best-selling author of “China, Inc.” and “Shock of Gray.” His books appear in twenty-seven languages. In addition to Newcity, the many publications PUBLISHERS he's written for include The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, GQ, Brian & Jan Hieggelke National Geographic, Harper's, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Chicago Associate Publisher Mike Hartnett Magazine, Chicago Reader and too many defunct titles to mention and in whose EDITORIAL demise Fishman only played a very small part.  Editor Brian Hieggelke Managing Editor Jan Hieggelke DAVID HAMMOND (Writer, “Built on a Better Bagel”) is Newcity’s Dining & Art Editor Kerry Cardoza Drinking Editor, and he also covers food/drink, art, archaeology and travel for the Design Editor Vasia Rigou Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Gastro Obscura, Wednesday Journal, Better Dining and Drinking Editor and Plate magazines. With WBEZ’s Monica Eng, he’s writing a book (U of I Press, David Hammond 2022) about Chicago original foods like the Mother-in-Law, Chicken Vesuvio and Film Editor Ray Pride Italian Beef.  Since last March, he’s been huddling at home in Oak Park. Lit Editor Tara Betts Music Editor Robert Rodi SHARON HOYER (Writer, “A New Movement”) is a freelance writer and the Stage Editor Sharon Hoyer stage editor of Newcity magazine. She is a regular contributor to transportation ART & DESIGN site Streetsblog Chicago and is the producer and host of \"Means of Production,\" Senior Designers Fletcher Martin, an interview show on Lumpen Radio covering performing arts in Chicago. Sharon Dan Streeting, Billy Werch is also the former general manager of the Dill Pickle Food Co-op and helps new, Designer Stephanie Plenner independent neighborhood grocery stores open their doors. MARKETING Marketing Manager Todd Hieggelke SCOOP JACKSON (Writer, “Imperfect Union”) is president of Strong Island OPERATIONS Media, a senior features writer for ESPN, co-host of The Music Snobs podcast, General Manager Jan Hieggelke and author of “The Game Is Not A Game: The Power, Protest and Politics of Distribution Nick Bachmann, American Sports.” (Haymarket Books) Adam Desantis, Preston Klik FRANK LUBY (Writer, “The Idea of the Blues”) was the first editor of Newcity in Retail price $10 per issue. In certain locations, 1986. He recently published the paperback version of “Blues Flashbacks,” his one copy is available on a complimentary basis. anthology of blues interviews and concert reviews from 1983 to 1992. In addition, Subscriptions and additional copies of current he runs Present Tense LLC, a creator of award-winning business and and back issues available at Newcityshop.com. management content, and BluesBackroadsBaseball LLC, a micropublisher Copyright 2021, New City Communications, Inc. focusing on Americana. He lives in Chicago. All Rights Reserved. Newcity assumes no responsibility to return ROBERT RODI (Writer, “Changing Identity”) is an author, spoken-word unsolicited editorial or graphic material. All performer and musician who has served as Newcity’s Music Editor since 2014. rights in letters and unsolicited editorial or He’s written more than a dozen books, including the travel memoir “Seven graphic material will be treated as uncondition- Seasons In Siena.” His literary and music criticism has appeared in the Los ally assigned for publication and copyright Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Salon, The Huffington Post and many other purposes and subject to comment editorially. national and regional publications. Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. HADIA SHAIKH (Writer, “Decisive Moment”) is a writer and independent curator originally from Indianapolis. Her interest in art sparked at a young age when living Newcity is published by in Hyderabad, Pakistan, where she attended her aunt's ceramic exhibitions. After Newcity Communications, Inc. receiving her Master's in Museum Studies from IUPUI, she moved to Chicago 47 West Polk, Suite 100-223, where she is now based. Chicago, IL 60605 DAN STREETING (Senior Designer, Newcity, cover and “35th Anniversary Visit NewcityNetwork.com Spectacular”) is the founder of Streeting Design, a graphic design and illustration for advertising and studio that focuses on publications and print projects. In previous careers, Dan editorial information. taught experimental typography, ran a storefront gallery, and played in a synth band in southern Michigan. He holds an MFA in 2D Design from Cranbrook Subscribe at Newcityshop.com Academy of Art, and he lives in Berwyn with his wife Jessica and son Liam. FEBRUARY 2021 Newcity 5

Built on by David Hammond photos by Neil Burger a Better Bagel Rye Deli + Drink and the Evolving Chicago Delicatessen Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 On the near fered), and the long-closed Zum Deutschen Sax could only speculate, but he believed Southwest Side Eck, a German restaurant that, according to one reason for the general absence of delis of Chicago local gossip, held an unsavory annual birthday could be that when the children of Jewish deli celebration of one of Germany’s best-known owners got old enough to work, they opted in the early twentieth century, the Maxwell and worst of twentieth-century leaders. Kuhn’s not to go into the family business but instead Street neighborhood was home to the fa- moved to DesPlaines in 2007. moved into the professional class (doctors, mous and infamous, including Benny Good- lawyers, accountants) and into the suburbs, man and Jack Ruby. Maxwell Street was also In Chicago, the deli has tended to be rep- leaving the family business to fade away. home to Lyon’s Kosher Deli, opened by Ben resentative of many traditions, including the Lyon in 1925. Lyon’s Kosher Deli was later still-going-strong Kasia’s Deli, a Polish oper- Another reason for the perceived decline sold to Nate Duncan, an African American ation that makes some of the city’s best piero- of the deli is that deli food is not perceived as who spoke Yiddish and continued to make gi; J.P. Graziano, founded in 1937, a kind of good for your health. Sax, in fact, opens his traditional corned beef and pickled herring Italian deli, with dry goods and made-to-order “Save the Deli” with a remembrance of his pa- until he had to close. The Nate’s deli building subs and other sandwiches; and Harrington’s, ternal grandfather who died while eating an was demolished in 1995, but was immortal- an Irish deli in Jefferson Park. (It seems overstuffed smoked meat sandwich from ized in “The Blues Brothers” (1980) when it Irish-Americans got their passion for corned Schwartz’s in Montreal. was renamed the Soul Food Café and be- beef, especially on St. Patrick’s Day, from the came the backdrop for Aretha Franklin, Jewish folks who lived in adjacent areas of Delis are on the decline everywhere. In his dressed as a counter hostess, belting out a New York City.) book, Sax reports that in the 1930s, New York jaw-dropping rendition of “Respect.” City was home to more than 1,500 kosher Where Deli Culture is Big… delis. Today, only a few dozen remain. To stroll into the aisles at Kuhn’s Delicates- And Not So Big sen on Lincoln in the 1970s was to be bathed While Chicago also has fewer delis now in aromas of smoked meat and cheese and New York still has Katz’s Delicatessen, than in years past, there’s lately been a resur- battered by the clatter of cash registers and Russ & Daughters, Barney Greengrass and gence of delis in general; specifically delis the chatter of guys in white behind the count- dozens of other delicatessens. Los Angeles that reflect new attitudes toward what a deli er, taking orders and kibitzing with customers. has big names like Langer’s, Greenblatt’s and can be and what it should be serving a new In the days before Treasure Island, and many, Canter’s. And Chicago has fewer delis than generation of customers. many days before Whole Foods, Kuhn’s was either of the two big coastal cities. the place to go for imported foods served with The Rise of the Chicago Deli, old world dignity and efficiency. Kuhn’s was I interviewed David Sax, author of “Save Built on a Better Bagel not a Jewish deli; the smoked pork loin and the Deli,” for Chicago Public Radio in the mid- Schweinebraten were clear evidence of that. 2000s. As we sat in Manny’s, one of Chica- “I wanted to take bagels and pastrami to a Kuhn’s Delicatessen was down the street from go’s best-known and beloved delis, wedging new level,” says chef Billy Caruso of Rye St. Alphonsus (where German mass is still of- gargantuan corned beef sandwiches into our Deli + Drink, which opened in November pie holes, I mumbled, “What accounts for the 2020. “There’s a New York bagel and a Mon- lack of a huge deli culture in Chicago?” treal bagel, but I wanted to make a Chicago bagel. We build on the New York bagel, but I 6

Pastrami sandwich FEBRUARY 2021 Newcity at Rye Deli & Drink 7

wanted a bagel that had a little more pull, Caruso. “I’d heard about Janie’s Mill [of Ash- ing at 250 [degrees], to get that bark on a little more crunch, made of regionally kum, Illinois] which had been paving the the outside, then we pull it down to 210- sourced flours.” way for mill-to-table,” says Caruso, “so I got 215 [degrees].” on the phone with them, and we went over “We wanted to make something new and the types of grains and extractions.” At Rye Deli + Drink, Caruso and Vass different,” general manager Jeremy Vass are going for something more than what says. “Our consulting company had done Several months of lockdown gave Caru- you will find at the traditional New York a demographic study of our neighborhood so a long time to experiment with grains deli, like Katz’s, which has an outpost in and we found that upwardly mobile millen- until he found the one that was exactly Austin where Caruso grew up. If you’ve nials care a lot about their health, and so right. “I tried a lot of wheats,” Caruso says. been to any of the major New York delis, you know what to expect when you get your sandwich: it’s going to be big, so big in fact that you may not be able to fit it in your mouth to eat it. “We’re not making a mile-high brisket sandwich,” Caruso says. “I don’t want a sandwich that’s seven inches tall, though I’m not saying they’re bad. There’s a place for them, but there’s a shift now.” And that shift is motivated not only by today’s tastes but also by preferences for local ingredients and menu items that are more adventurous than the historic pas- trami sandwich. Beyond the Big Damn Sandwich Matzo ball soup at This traditional focus on bigger-than- Rye Deli & Drink your-head sandwiches of fatty, delicious- ly fatty meat may be one reason why deli Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 they don’t eat deli food on a regular basis. “Our starter is made from brasetto rye, and food is perceived as an indulgence, a We had to go for healthier options. And ev- it adds a sweet, caraway flavor. Red wheat red meat orgy out of sync with today’s eryone cites New York as having the bagel. has the protein and tenacity to form a health-conscious consumers. That’s one But what makes Chicago different? We good backbone for what we’re doing. reason why Rye Deli + Drink is broaden- live in the breadbasket of the world, the ing the traditional deli menu to incorporate best grains are grown in our backyard. So “The base for all our bagels is the same. more vegetable-forward Mediterranean we decided to source from small, local After we activate the starter, which takes options that use Midwestern proteins, veg- farmers growing heirloom grains. And we a day, there’s proofing, and then we roll etables and grains. created a better bagel, with a higher pro- them into bagel shape, and they sit on a tein content. Our bagel is thirteen grams tray for a day. The next day we bake them “I put together this very Mediterranean of protein using all-natural ingredients; if and boil them in lye and barley malt, which menu concept as an homage to Jerusalem, you add a schmear of our labneh, that adds is traditional and gives the bagels the tra- and all the cultures that contributed to the another three to four grams of protein. So ditional pull and chew.” melting pot that is Jerusalem, like the brik, we created a comfort food and a power the Turkish pastry, and I wanted to make food. And that fits our demographic.” Many people enter a deli with one thing a lighter, healthier version,” Caruso says. on their mind, and that’s brisket, whether Why shouldn’t Chicago have a signature corned beef or pastrami. Caruso spends The brik is one of those nontraditional bagel? New York has become the default a lot of time focused on perfecting the bris- deli foods offered at Rye Deli + Drink that’s North American gold standard for bagels, ket, and like his wheat, his meat comes destined for popularity. Brik is an egg-filled but other cities have their own version. Per- from Midwestern farms. pastry, and the version Caruso makes in- haps the most well-known and distinctive cludes fingerling potatoes, fresh thyme non-New York bagel comes out of Montre- “We use prime meat, Iowa premium and dill. The pastry is a thin, crisp crêpe, al, from places like St-Viateur Bagel Shop, briskets,” Caruso says, with obvious pride. and although the brik is presented as where the bagels are baked in wood-burn- “The beef is brined for twenty-one days, a breakfast dish, it’d be fine any time of ing ovens, slightly charred and carrying a then we pull them out, let them dry to day. One could see it as a drinking food to bit of smokiness in each bite. form a pellicle [a thin coating of protein be enjoyed with a glass of wine (which. that permits the smokiness to stick to the unlike many other delis, is available at Rye There are lots of ways to make bagels, meat]. After that, we rub them down with Deli + Drink). though “the process of making the bagel pastrami spices. The best pastrami, for is more complex than you might think,” says me, has bark on it, some crunch, and we The matzo ball soup is a bowl of vibrant smoke the brisket for twelve hours, start- beauty balanced with hardiness, “an hom- age to grandma’s medicine,” says Caruso, but it’s not like anything bubbe served. It’s made with a twenty-four-hour chicken stock, parsnips, leeks, flavored with za’atar and sumac, garnished with parsley, dill and olive oil. The soup is brimming with fresh, raw vegetables, making this menu selection the perfect answer to 8

Chicago's New Breed of Delis Steingold’s Delicatessen and Café, which opened in , was declared by Michael Nagrant in Redeye at that time to be “the Jewish deli of the future.” Steingold’s broke rules: for instance, they added anchovy mustard and dill kimchi to their pastrami, which would not be served at a traditional deli. Kudos to Steingold’s for being at the forefront of the trend to expand the deli menu and o er items that while not contradictory to the tradition, expand it considerably. Steingold’s recently relocated right next to the Music Box Theatre in Lakeview. Bagels at Half Sour in Printers Row opened in late , Rye Deli & Drink and the place seems less about building on whether you should have soup or sal- What Pairs Well the deli tradition and more about presenting ad for your starter: in this bowl, you with Pastrami? deli symbolism upfront while striking out on a have both. As striking as the cornuco- much more inclusive path. Half Sour’s menu is pia of beautiful vegetables in the soup, Connected as it is to the Crowne headed up by listings for four or so bagels and the matzo balls are made of blue corn. Plaza hotel in Greektown, Rye Deli + schmears, pretty much baseline for any place Such variations from the traditional Drink had to have a full bar, which is claiming deli heritage; then the menu moves version are destined to raise the ire of not seen at a lot of delis. There was a quickly into cheese curds, artichoke dips, those who’ve grown up expecting deli bar at Chicago’s extraordinarily short- charred wings, and other items unlikely to be food to be done a certain way. A Jew- lived Dillman’s (the only stateside deli found at other new-breed delis. Inside Half ish chef I know saw a picture of the I’ve visited that had crystal chande- Sour, the long dark wood bar doesn’t look like blue matzo ball that I posted and de- liers), and beer and wine are o ered at anything we’d see in a by-the-book deli. Maybe, scribed it as his “worst nightmare.” I the perennially popular Eleven City though, this is where the deli is headed, to a get that, but before you make a final Diner, but the breadth of bar o erings place that serves a handful of traditional deli decision, taste the soup, which is the at Rye Deli + Drink is larger than might standards as well as a lot of what you might most delicious version of matzo ball be expected. think of more generally as “comfort food.” soup in memory. Traditional? Heck, no. Delicious. Heck, yes. So, what pairs with traditional deli Jeff and Judes opened in , and it foods? Both Caruso and Vass are cer- Salmon is also on the menu and tified level sommeliers, and Vass bills itself as a “Jew-ish Deli,” although the Caruso says that “historically, delis says that “With pastrami, you’ve got o erings are perhaps the most traditional of smoked their pastrami and corned smoked meat, it’s salty and it’s fatty. any delicatessen here, with steady standards beef, but we also smoke our salmon. With pastrami, and many deli foods, like corned beef, pastrami and lox. This new And we use Skuna Bay salmon, the you need acidic wine, something to deli is, the owners say, “a tribute to the heritage best in the country. The fish has a cleanse the palate between bites, so and hometown of Los Angeles.” Because it sashimi quality, and I smoke it, but I you can enjoy more of the pastrami opened during the pandemic, o erings are don’t use the traditional wood, which without overloading the palate. You spare, but the menu will grow with time. is hickory. I use applewood and oak, so wouldn’t want a sweet wine because there’s a sweet smoke on the salmon that will add to the richness. A red wine, Gotham Bagels started in Madison, and pastrami.” like an old world Italian or a zinfandel, or a high-acid pinot noir, are what you Wisconsin, and in expanded to Chicago While departing from the traditional want to pair with pastrami. If you prefer deli, Caruso aims to “trigger memories white wines, a rich, buttery California (with a second location to open soon). Gotham of nostalgia and take all the stress out. chardonnay is not what you want; a Many people have remarked how won- high-acid French chardonnay might Bagels clearly uses the New York bagel as its derful it is to have our food at a time work, but I would seek out a sauvignon like this, and that’s what we’re going blanc, maybe from New Zealand.” model. As at Steingold’s, Gotham Bagels deals for. We’re in a world of negativity, and when people come in here to get a Chicago is a cocktail city, and Rye mostly in sandwiches. They use traditional bowl of matzo ball soup or a pastrami Deli + Drink, although they will cus- sandwich, they smile, and that’s what tom-make any cocktail you want, also ingredients in their bagels, hand-rolled and we’re going for.” has a large selection of draft cocktails, so if you stop by the restaurant for a baked in-house, and their sandwiches reflect Another time-tested way to take the quick sandwich, you will get your cock- stress out during stressful times is, of tail fast… in a Chicago minute. customary o erings with notable exceptions: course, to serve drinks. the OMFG is a bagel sandwich with a fried FEBRUARY 2021 Newcity egg, aged cheddar, spicy aioli, Nashville Fried Chicken (another rising favorite in Chicago and thick-sliced bacon, which one might expect from a restaurant in a city known as “hog butcher for the world,” and as clear a cue as any that Gotham Bagels—like Rye Deli + Drink—is breaking the mold of the traditional delicatessen and moving confidently beyond it. 9

New From Agate Cuddle “A beautiful story of basketball and life.” up with a good book —STEVE KERR, HEAD COACH, GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS the A POWERFUL book MIDWESTERN cellar MEMOIR 4736-38 N. Lincoln Ave. — bookcellarinc.com [email protected] — 773.293.2665 from trailblazing former Chicago Visit bookcellarinc.com Tribune writer, to check out our upcoming virtual events. Melissa Isaacson Available from your favorite local independent bookstore CONGRATULATIONS ON 35 YEARS, NEWCITY! FROM YOUR FRIENDS AT AGATE Rivendell Theatre Ensemble presents a Canamac Production JUST CAUSE: THE EXPERiENCE created by Todd Logan written by Lisa Dillman & Todd Logan directed by Andrea J. Dymond FEB 17 - MAR 6 WED - SAT at 7PM Special Matinee SUN 2/21 at 3PM TIX - $15 Set against the backdrop of the George Floyd protest and Covid-19, this riveting legal thriller performed over Zoom invites audiences to deliberate as an artistic director sues her former employer—a prestigious Chicago Theater—for reverse discrimination.  For tickets visit Rivendelltheatre.org or 773.334.7728

Changing Identity by Robert Rodi MIRROR TO THE FUTURE 35th Anniversary Decisive Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE Spectacular Moment FEATURING by Hadia Shaikh A New The Idea 11 Movement of the Blues by Sharon Hoyer by Frank Luby Imperfect Union by Scoop Jackson Midway to Java by Ted C. Fishman FEBRUARY 2021 Newcity 11

Changing Identity Measuring Progress in the Journey from “Gay Novelist” to Music Editor by Robert Rodi Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE I was an advertising copywriter, one of hundreds toiling large- Queer novelists could ly in anonymity along Michigan Avenue and throughout the count on finding a public, Loop in 1991. In 1992, I was a cover story in Newcity. I was and many built that into genuine local celebrity. interviewed by a journalist named Allen Smalling, then taken Chicago authors like Achy Obejas and Mark out for a photoshoot at thrift shops and wig emporiums along Richard Zubro were rec- Lincoln Avenue. All that had changed was that I’d written a ognized and feted wher- novel. That in itself wasn’t much more remarkable than copy- ever they went. writing; Chicago’s always been a town in which you can’t Which isn’t to say it was easy to break through; the compe- tition was predictably fierce. My own cover-story moment was swing a dead cat without thwacking a novelist or three. What because my novel wasn’t about either coming out or the AIDS crisis; “Fag Hag” is instead a comic novel about a woman who made me different was that I was an openly gay novelist, and is socially and emotionally drawn to gay men. This is a com- had written a novel set in Chicago’s gay milieu. mon urban character type—I had many women tell me, either proudly or defiantly, that they were or had been such a per- son—but no one had put it center stage before. Being the first to do something—anything—is a pretty good bid for attention. I mentioned the AIDS crisis in passing, but in fact the role it played in all this is pivotal. By 1992, it had been an epidemic 12 Seriously. That’s all it took. It seems odd to us now, but in for more than a decade. (This is a tough statistic to confront, the late 1980s and much of the 1990s, novels were the only given that we’re only just shy of a year into a new global pan- mass medium that offered a profusion of stories of gay lives. demic.) In 1992 alone, more than 33,000 Americans died of True, there was a steady stream of gay-themed independent HIV infection. and it was the eleventh leading cause of death movies, but you weren’t likely to find Greg Araki’s oeuvre run- in Illinois. Yet it’s become axiomatic that the plague that dev- ning at a suburban multiplex. When Hollywood finally obliged astated gay communities across the country, including Chica- in 1993 (with the kind of extravagant self-congratulation only go’s, was also paradoxically responsible for triggering much Hollywood can bear to exhibit), the result was a film—“Phil- wider gay visibility, and setting the stage of the understanding, adelphia”—in which the same-sex lovers (played by Tom accommodation and acceptance that followed. Hanks and Antonio Banderas) never exchange as much as a In fact, it was in 1992 that Tom Tunney became the first kiss. Television was even more squeamish; when gay char- openly gay Chicago alderman. He’s now the city’s vice may- acters appeared at all, it was invariably in a context that em- or— appointed by our first openly LGBT mayor, Lori Lightfoot. phasized the effect of their sexuality on adjacent cis charac- The intervening years have witnessed countless other exam- ters. The lives gay people lived, the communities we built, ples of the wholesale mainstreaming of gay people—some were invisible. would say, at the expense of gay culture. People Like Us Books were different, though; cheaper to produce, for one closed its doors in 1997, as did A Different Light some years thing, and consumed in private. The full spectrum of gay ex- later; Gay Chicago was one of many LGBT publications that perience could be, and was, explored. Gay fiction boomed, folded in the new century. My own Newcity cover story is, in aided by the rise of bookstores devoted exclusively to gay- retrospect, one of the auguries of that coming shift; a decade themed product, like A Different Light in New York, Los An- prior, I wouldn’t have registered as newsworthy to anything geles and San Francisco, or here in Chicago, People Like Us. but exclusively gay periodicals.

This isn’t to say that gay visibility led immediately to gay in- In the meantime, the most convincing argument that gay peo- Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE clusion, nor that gay culture suffered a single, cataclysmic col- ple have been thoroughly mainstreamed is, for me, my own sto- lapse. Social progress in America has always been a matter of ry. For a decade-and-a-half after my Newcity profile, “gay nov- 13 two steps forward, one step back, which, for those on the front elist” was my brand; and you’ll have to excuse me for confessing lines, can often feel like no progress at all. Victories are achieved that it often rankled. An admirer who says, “You’re my favorite across a continuum whose farthest reach isn’t even visible from gay novelist,” is paying a qualified, almost backhanded compli- where we are on the arc; in the nineties, many LGBT activists ment—along the lines of, “You’re my favorite Jewish composer,” wouldn’t even consider devoting their energies to something so or “You’re my favorite woman architect.” obviously, unattainably fanciful as same-sex marriage. And even ten years ago, the primacy of the trans rights movement in to- But the gradual loss of publishing’s monopoly on gay stories— day’s progressive politics would have seemed literally incredible. as movies and TV, finally heeding the smell of cash wafting from I’m assuming that this mainstreaming trend will only pick up gay pockets, swarmed into the fray—meant that the brand I wore speed—though our recent self-save from a rightward swerve so uncomfortably soon lost its currency. My last traditionally pub- into autocracy should give us pause. We can’t be entirely cer- lished novel about Chicago-based gay life was “When You Were tain that we’re not living in a glittering, doomed, Weimar mo- Me” in 2007—by which time I’d already stepped into other literary ment. Gay people, along with sexual, racial and religious minori- arenas, including scripting comic books for Vertigo and Marvel. ties, are the canaries in democracy’s coal mine, and as I write In 2009 I jumped saddles from fiction to nonfiction, publishing these words there are still children in cages on our southern first a memoir of my year on the canine agility circuit, then two border. We can take comfort in progressive momentum; we just years later a deep dive into the bareback-horse race culture of can’t take it for granted. I’m hoping active citizenship becomes Siena, Italy. Since 2015, I’ve also been the music editor for New- a hot trend in the upcoming decade. city. What all these later endeavors have in common is that the profile I maintain in each of them has absolutely nothing to do (previous page) Newcity cover, January 23-January 30, 1992 with my sexuality; I’m not a gay memoirist or gay travel writer or gay music critic; I’m just the thing itself. Queerness hasn’t become (above) Diana Solis (b. 1956), “Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade, Chicago, on par with, say, left-handedness or red-headedness; but it’s no June 1991.” Archival color, inkjet print, 11 x 14 inches. Courtesy of the artist. longer the defining component in an individual’s identity. Part of the “LatinXAmerican” exhibition on view at the DePaul Art Museum, 935 West Fullerton, through August 15. All to the good, of course. Though it does mean that if I ever manage to snag another cover story, I’m really going to have to goddamn earn it.

Decisive Moment Reflections on a Thirty-Three-Year Journey, as Chicago’s Photography Doyenne Catherine Edelman Closes Her Gallery by Hadia Shaikh Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE “She said come to Chicago. I said okay. Thankfully, I got in be- she opened the gallery, she was only twenty-five. Her first space at 300 West Superior was small, and later doubled cause I didn’t apply anywhere else.” Catherine Edelman remi- in size, eventually taking over most of the lower level. Edel- nisces about a past conversation with old friend María Martínez- man was there until a year-and-a-half ago, when she relo- Cañas, a Cuban-born photographer and the person who sparked cated to 1637 West Chicago. But there was a time when Edelman’s interest in photography. Edelman came close to permanently shutting her gallery. The recession of 1991-1992 led many galleries to close. Around the same time, a curatorial assistant position for Robert Sobieszek became vacant. Hearing this, Edelman was ready to move to Los Angeles and work for Sobieszek, but he encouraged her to keep her gallery open because she would have greater autonomy than if she were working When Edelman was unsure what her next move would in the museum world. Edelman trusted his advice and re- be after completing her undergraduate studies, she took mained in Chicago, kept the gallery open, which was ulti- Martínez-Cañas’ suggestion and applied to the School of mately the better choice. the Art Institute of Chicago. Edelman arrived in Chicago in Two stock market crashes, two Gulf Wars, multiple re- 1985 to attend SAIC for her graduate degree in photogra- cessions and a plethora of iconic shows later—Catherine 14 phy, planning to become a photographer. In her second Edelman Gallery (CEG) celebrated thirty-three years in year and just six months shy of graduation in 1987, Edelman business on December 1, 2020. Over those years, CEG es- had surgery on her right eye for a congenital disease. She tablished itself as one of the leading galleries in the country quickly realized that she would not have a career as a pho- for its contemporary fine art photography, hosting 245 pub- tographer because of excessive eyestrain and began pur- lic exhibitions, featuring more than 200 prominent and suing other career routes. Edelman decided to open up a emerging talents. gallery to gain experience, in the hopes of becoming a mu- Karen Irvine, chief curator of photography at the Muse- seum curator. um of Contemporary Photography, has been a curator for In the summer of 1987, shortly after she graduated, Edel- twenty years. When Irvine came to MoCP, Edelman attend- man flew cross-country to meet curators who might men- ed one of her very first shows. They have known each oth- tor her. She believed that forming a rapport with curators er for many years—MoCP has acquired works by some of would help build a strong platform, and once they got to Edelman’s artists and they have done cross-programming. know her, they would vouch for her if artists were interest- Irvine says that Edelman is so knowledgeable about pho- ed in her gallery. Robert Sobieszek, longtime curator of tography and so discerning in her taste that she is a pillar photography at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in the photo community. became a mentor to Edelman. In the early years, she would “Cathy’s gallery has been an asset for the city and a real shut down the gallery in January and spend the month in contributor to the field of photography on a local and inter- Los Angeles, learning from him. national scope,” Irvine says. “She has been a really active The summer of 1987 was spent looking for the right space and important member of the photo community for all of for Catherine Edelman Gallery. “Everybody was in River the years that she has been open. Cathy is very connected, North at the time, so that’s where I went,” she says. When supportive, and knowledgeable about photography.”

Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE Catherine Edelman Photo: Paul Elledge 15

Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE Despite a substantive trajectory, in De- cember Edelman announced the gallery’s closure to the public as it makes a transi- tion to private dealing. Since the first of the year, Edelman sees clients by ap- pointment only. “The gallery closing is the hardest de- cision I’ve ever had to make. It wasn’t done freely,” she says. “But numbers don’t lie. It was definitely a product of COVID, the lack of foot traffic, and the complete collapse of the art-fair system, which was vital to the gallery’s success. Prior to mov- ing to 1637 West Chicago, my brother and I sat down and worked the numbers to see if it made sense, and we realized that within two years, I’d recover the costs in- volved in moving, building a new space from the ground up.” Since May, Edelman has tried to figure out how to keep the gallery running. She reached the point where she was paying out of her personal savings, which was unsustainable. Edelman tried her best to keep the gallery open, but the reality was that she was losing $15,000 to $20,000 a month. While she was concerned about the effect that closing would have on her staff, she knew it had to be done. “I am completely and utterly disappoint- ed and have no problem saying that,” she says. “Right now, I’m trying to figure out what ‘going private’ means. In my ideal world, I’d love to keep the gallery space and just be private, but I don’t know if that’s practical. I’m giving myself a little time to make that decision.” Irvine says that the closing of CEG is a blow to the local gallery scene; Edelman offered so much, she says, from amazing exhibits by great artists, both established 16 and emerging, to public programming. “We’re definitely sad to see Edelman Gal- lery closed,” Irvine says. “I’m glad that she’s still remaining in the field and will be supporting her artists privately amongst this brick-and-mortar space. It still is sad to see an institution that was a gathering place for a lot of the photo community to close its doors.” A few of Edelman’s favorite photographs (this page, top) Jeffrey Wolin, Cecilia Magaña Flores, Chicago, 2020 (this page, bottom) Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, Hegel's Holiday, 2018 (next page, top) Daniel Beltra, Amazon rainforest burns (#260), 2018 (next page, bottom) Lea Lund & Erik K, Erik Séville, November 2013

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Reflecting from when she opened the ing conversations on photography versus gallery to now, Edelman says that most of art and color versus black-and-white. An the money she inherited from her grandfa- established organization and one that all ther, which she used to open the gallery, photography dealers hoped to join was The was lost only two weeks after signing her Association of International Photography lease to the 1987 stock market crash. Re- Art Dealers, which launched its thirty-ninth gardless, she programmed the first handful edition of “The Photography Show” in 2019. of shows to focus on sex and politics, hop- Edwynn Houk was the only Chicago gallery ing to gain as much publicity as possible, specifically devoted to photography in the opening with “The Ballad of Sexual Depen- late 1980s, and was incredibly supportive dency” by Nan Goldin. Despite not making of Edelman’s decision to open a gallery ded- any money, Edelman received a tremen- icated to photography. As time passed, mu- dous amount of press. The first few years seums established dedicated departments of the gallery set the precedent for the gal- and galleries to the art form. Auction hous- lery where she only works with living pho- es began presenting photography-specific tographers. And it quickly reflected the gal- sales and photographers were added to lerists’ progressive bent; Edelman’s interest rosters of mainstream galleries. Photogra- in politics stems from growing up in New phy as an art form had been elevated. York City, where she “went to all the ‘No The future of galleries in the market, how- Nukes’ and ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ rallies, ever, is uncertain. Edelman believes the Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE protesting for human and civil rights.” model of the gallery is changing. “I cannot Edelman learned as she navigated the profess to know what it will look like but it’s world of art. She networked with other gal- clear that fewer and fewer people are being lery owners to understand the business and educated in the value of seeing art in situ,” never had a problem reaching out to others she says. “For years, gallery owners have in the industry. She knew she had a good spoken to one another about the lack of foot sense for business and gained the confi- traffic and the value of a brick-and-mortar dence to reach out to artists. From a start- space. The pandemic only exacerbated an up to becoming one of the Chicago’s pre- existing reality, which is truly heartbreaking. mier galleries for photography, Edelman Unfortunately, I think many galleries will credits the advice and mentoring of pho- close or go private, but I have faith that the tography curators Tom Hinson (Cleveland next generation will revive the gallery mod- Museum of Art), Robert Sobieszek (LAC- el in new and innovative ways.” MA), Anne Tucker (Museum of Fine Arts, In addition to running CEG, Edelman Houston), and John Fergus-Jean (Colum- co-founded a nonprofit in 2018, CASE Art bus Museum of Art). Edelman recalls other Fund, with a friend who lives in Norway. The gallery owners who helped her when she nonprofit raises awareness for children’s hu- reached out for practical things such as man rights through the support and exhibi- how to ship a photograph. Throughout the tion of photography. CASE Art Fund collab- years, Edelman did her best to stay true to orates with organizations worldwide, her own vision of what CEG represented including UNICEF, UNHCR and non-gov- 18 and to seek out photographers whom she ernmental agencies. “We’re very interested wanted to work with, although her taste in working with people who know more than evolved over decades in business. we do, as we seek to add a different perspec- Exhibition view, CASE Art FundPhotog- tive through photography,” she says. “We raphy had come into its own before Edel- have several projects in the works including man first opened her gallery but its role and one in El Paso about the U.S.-Mexico border, place in the art world has changed signifi- but due to COVID, that has been put on hold. cantly since then. There were galleries But we’re excited for 2021, when we will pro- throughout the United States and Europe duce outdoor exhibitions in Chicago and oth- that specialized in the medium when CEG er major cities.” opened. In the late 1980s to the early 1990s, Edelman has decided to keep the brick- Edelman and her colleagues were still hold- and-mortar space and operate by appoint- ment only. Looking at past seasons, she feels lucky to have the support of Chicago- A few of Edelman’s favorite photographs ans and people worldwide for more than thirty-three years. (clockwise from top left) “When people go private, nothing really Laurent Millet, Cyanomètre 4, 2017 changes,” she says. “It’s still Catherine Edel- Michael Koerner, Gene Pool #8809L-8805R, 2019 man Gallery. If people want to see things, I Clarissa Bonet, Gust, 2018 will have the ability to show work whether Terry Evans, Spring Bur Oak, April-May, 2019 it’s at 1637 or my home.”

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The Idea of the Blues It's Time for Chicago to Capitalize on the Heritage that Changed the Course of Music by Frank Luby Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE Nashville has the neon lights of Broadway and the Ryman Audi- First stop: A dorm in Hyde Park torium. Memphis has the commercial glow of Beale Street and Woodward Court, once known by its sexy University Sun Studio. New Orleans has the French Quarter, no embellish- of Chicago nickname “the new dorm,” was a boxy ment needed. four-story collection of cinder blocks surrounded by far Chicago has… potential? more appealing buildings. Across the street stood Rockefeller Chapel to the west, the University of Chica- go Lab School to the east, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House to the north. In the spirit of the university’s That’s frustrating. No city has better music stories to future slogan, you could look at Woodward Court from tell than Chicago. I realize that is a bold statement, but the outside and think, “Yep, that’s where fun goes to die.” Chicago should be in the top echelon of cities for music Of course that’s not true. tourism, anchored by the vibrant and unrivaled blues When I first attended a party at Woodward Court in scene. How that can work commercially is a topic for as a first-year student in the College, the live band another day. Here I’ll focus on a few of the stories that was Tumbling Dice, a Rolling Stones cover band. The justify why Chicago should seek the recognition, tra ic dorm’s lounges complemented the building, with worn and music tourism dollars it deserves. carpet, bad vinyl furniture and tiny food stands that sold Chicago Blues is stuck in a muddy ditch between the hot dogs, Pop Tarts and soda in glass bottles. Bold Bright Chicago of the mid-twentieth century and It was decades later that I learned that this dorm com- the Pixelated Chicago of the early s, a city where plex is where rock 'n' roll started to earn its modifiers. 20 some bright spots flicker but the Big Picture is a blurry Blues rock? Obviously. Southern rock? Yup. Acid rock? mystery. That is not a knock at the city’s talented artists Kind of. Partial but essential credit for those modifiers of today or its hometown label, Alligator Records. Far goes to Butterfield, Bloomfield and Bishop. That is not from it. It is a call to make Chicago Blues—past, pres- a swanky law firm or advertising agency in the Loop. ent and future—as attractive as possible. The trio is three young musicians who met and played Newcity first explored the city's rich blues history in together for the first time at the “Twist Nights” at Wood- , when we devoted most of the ninth issue (as in, ward Court in the early s. (For one of many good ninth issue ever!) to a preview of the upcoming Chicago accounts of those times, you can check the Mike Bloom- Blues Festival. That festival, a tribute to the stars of the field biography “Guitar King.”) Chess Records era, was one glorious peak within a In multiple iterations, the Butterfield Blues Band steady decline that began when the South Side clubs made a name for itself in clubs across Chicago’s South started to close one by one, until none were left by the Side. The band played at the Newport Jazz Festival the early s. day Bob Dylan went electric. They performed at Mon- To find fun stories, we need only visit three buildings terey and Woodstock. They played at the Fillmore with in Chicago—one long gone, one collapsing, and one re- the Grateful Dead and everyone who was anyone in the stored but often ignored—to understand how Chicago Bay Area. blues artists did much more than play and record their Paul Butterfield, an alum of the Lab School, played songs. No, they altered the trajectory of popular music. harmonica. Mike Bloomfield played guitar, as did Elvin Their collective influence is so fundamental that if you Bishop. Together, they refined the twin-guitar band for- removed it, the music we all love today would collapse mat that inspired many Southern rock bands. Bishop is like a Jenga tower. also the artist behind the s one-hit-wonder “Fooled

Around and Fell in Love,” although he did Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE not sing the lead vocal. That honor went to Mickey Thomas, who later sang hits such as “Jane” for Je erson Starship. Bishop has a Gumpian knack for being in the right place at the right time, but unlike that hapless movie hero, Bishop had the im- mense chops to make music history. He went to the University of Chicago in on a National Merit scholarship to study physics. (I always found that intriguing:I also went to the U of C to study physics, albeit as a National Merit semifinalist.) When Elvin and I spoke by phone this past summer, he explained how our physics curricula unfolded in much di erent ways. In the early s, I attended classes at the Ryerson and Eckhart buildings with a star lineup of professors such as Cronin and Parker. In the early s, Elvin devoted his time to studying sound waves—along with certain basic forms of organic chemistry—at the Florence, Pepper and Theresa buildings with a star lineup of professors such as Wa- ters, Wolf and Wells. Florence’s, Theresa’s and Pepper’s— three legendary South Side blues clubs— no longer exist. Their direct successors, such as the Checkerboard Lounge are also gone, but their grandchild, Buddy Guy’s Legends, still thrives a stone’s throw from Printers Row. And Woodward Court? The only traces, if there are any, lay buried un- der the foundation of the Booth Graduate School of Business. But it is not too much of a stretch to ar- gue that the Butterfield Blues Band, togeth- er and individually, played an important role in the evolution of important rock ‘n’ roll sub- genres in the s and beyond. Second stop: A storefront studio 21 in the South Loop When we planned the Newcity guide to the Blues Fest, we aimed high. We wanted to get interviews with the headliners to anchor a lead story about the old Chess Records studio at South Michigan. Chuck Berry’s people said that he would gladly take part in an interview. All we had to do was pay them , . In advance. I mentioned that to Brian, and after about eight nanoseconds of his deepest contem- plation, he muttered a couple of syllables that implied that I should maybe look else- where for sources. Robb Perea’s photo adorned the cover of Newcity’s May , issue

That search did not take long. Someone knew someone who Freddie’s father put it this way in our lengthy talk in 1986: knew someone who connected me with Ralph Bass and Willie “You know, the world is hungry for the blues, but doesn’t know Dixon, two men whose roles at Chess Records were so essen- it. It’s like a vitamin that a man doesn’t know he needs. When you tial that it’s hard to give either of them one label. To give you get the blues, and you understand the wisdom of the blues, you some small flavor: the Rock get a better understanding & Roll Hall of Fame says of other people.” that Bass “changed popu- The idea of the blues lar music forever and for eventually made its way the better.” Before joining across the Atlantic and had Chess in 1958 and staying such an impact, especially for all of its heyday at 2120 in the UK, that one can ar- South Michigan, his contri- gue (as I do) that the British butions to twentieth-cen- Invasion began in that sec- tury music history included ond-floor studio in the 2120 signing a young R&B artist South Michigan building. named James Brown to his But if you don’t believe me, first record deal. let’s ask Keith Richards and Dixon, who passed away Sir Paul McCartney. in 1992, was the poet lau- When the Rolling Stones reate of the blues. The Roll- came to Chicago for the first Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE ing Stones, Cream, The time in 1964, they sought out Doors, Steppenwolf and the Chess musicians at 2120. Led Zeppelin all covered a Richards describes what Willie Dixon song on their happened in his book, “Life”: debut albums. You can also “There in the perfect sound hear Dixon playing his up- studio, in the room where ev- right bass—purchased for erything we’d listened to was $79 from the Sears, Roe- made, perhaps out of relief or buck and Co. catalog—on just the fact that people like the early Chuck Berry hits Buddy Guy, Chuck Berry, and such as “Johnny B. Goode,” Willie Dixon were wandering “Maybellene” and “Rock in and out, we recorded four- and Roll Music.” teen tracks in two days.” Dixon held a modest What else came out of view of what he and his col- that “perfect sound studio” leagues achieved during besides some of the great- their years at 2120 South est blues music of all time? Michigan. Chess Records That is the very same space had its offices on the first where Chuck Berry record- floor and its recording stu- ed most of his greatest hits. dio on the second floor at How influential was Chuck 22 that address from the late Berry? In 2017, Sir Paul told 1950s through the end of the 1960s. At that time, the hulk of the Rolling Stone magazine that “[i]t’s not really possible to sum up Lexington Hotel, once the headquarters of Al Capone, still stood what he meant to all us young guys growing up in Liverpool.” across the street. (Yes, the place where Geraldo thought he was But there’s more. going to find buried treasure back in 1986.) In his work as a producer, Ralph Bass stressed improvisation “We never thought we were making history,” Dixon told me and creativity. He felt that would be the best way to capture the when we spoke by phone way back in 1986. “We were just ad- raw energy of electrified Chicago blues. “Nothing was cut-and- vancing the idea of the blues.” dry,” he told me back in 1986. “The fact is, in a session, a line That is an understatement. The “idea of the blues” appeals to might pop into your head all of a sudden. That’s why we just let people at many levels, and has drawn me in for almost forty the tape player keep rolling.” years. One night in 1983, Buddy Guy’s brother Phil played a Granted, the Chicago blues scene had its share of sharp dis- concert in the Woodward Court cafeteria. Willie Dixon’s son tinctive characters—Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry come to mind— Freddie played bass that night, and during a break he gave me but Chicago blues and R&B always struck me as rougher and his take on the appeal of blues. rawer than its cousins in Kansas City, Memphis, Detroit or St. “You sit and listen to a set of blues and there is always at least Louis. It’s like a loud shirt that is buttoned wrong, but nobody one song, one song with those words that just go right through cares. It’s about emotion, not polish or appearances. That’s at you,” he said. “You say to yourself ‘Hey, that’s me they’re singing least the way that Ralph Bass explained it. about. I’ve been there before.’” Some artists would request another take on songs, but often “the performances were so sensational that we did not record again,” Bass said. “I told them that most people are tone-deaf (above) Checkerboard Lounge poster anyway, so they should appeal to their emotions.”

One example of that Chess magic was a song that Chess session Companion Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE drummer Maurice White called a “big-ass smash” in his autobiography. Playlist He was referring to “Rescue Me” by Fontella Bass, which peaked at #4 23 on the Billboard pop chart in 1965 and still gets lots of airplay on oldie “Johnny B. Goode” commercial-radio formats. That song was recorded in that “perfect sound studio” at 2120. by Chuck Berry Minnie Riperton, who hit #1 on the Billboard charts on her own in Willie Dixon plays bass on this tune, 1975 with the impossible-to-sing-along-with “Lovin’ You,” sang back- as he did in many of Chuck Berry’s hit ground vocals on “Rescue Me.” And what happened to White, the drum- songs. This song is traveling through mer? He eventually earned his way into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame outer space right now aboard the as the founding genius behind Earth, Wind & Fire. Voyager spacecraft. Really. Chicago was the destination for blues artists and Chess Records was “2120 South the primary hub. “Everyone in the blues would go through Chicago one Michigan Ave.” way or another because they could get recognition in Chicago,” Willie Dixon told me. “In the South they would think ‘If I can get to Chicago, I by the Rolling Stones can make it.’” The Stones recorded this instru- Willie Dixon’s widow purchased the Chess Records building after mental during their sessions on the hearing it might be torn down. This building is now the “restored but second floor of the Chess Building. often ignored” one mentioned above. Today it serves as the home for Willie Dixon’s Blues Heaven Foundation and an accompanying blues “Fooled Around museum. and Fell in Love” When the museum reopens after COVID, you can visit that “perfect by Elvin Bishop sound studio” Keith Richards described, and walk where so much mu- sic history happened. In the book “Life,” Richards notes that the Rolling This late seventies smash earned Stones’ “greatest contribution to music is that we turned American peo- Elvin a “one-hit wonder” label. It ple back on to their own music.” shows up in many movies, including 2014’s “Guardians of the Galaxy.” This museum is a must-see gem. “Rescue Me” Third stop: A two-story house in Bronzeville by Fontella Bass The Checkerboard Lounge, Pepper’s Lounge and a later iteration of Theresa’s were among the blues clubs that once dotted 43rd Street. Fontella Bass sang and co-wrote it Before Muddy Waters moved to the suburbs late in life, he owned a and Ralph Bass produced it. The house at 4339 South Lake Park Avenue just south of 43rd Street. amazing Minnie Riperton (“Loving You”) sang background vocals and “The man spent almost his whole life at the end of that street,” Maurice White (Earth, Wind & Fire) Buddy Guy told me during one of our talks at the Checkerboard Lounge was the drummer. in the mid-1980s. “We had to do something to honor him. New Orleans had done that sort of thing, and so has Memphis. But Chicago is the Home “Lockdown!” of the Blues and it should do something to recognize these people.” by Elvin Bishop’s In August 1985, the city named a stretch of 43rd Street in Muddy Big Fun Trio Plus! Waters’ honor. Yes, it’s a COVID song and video, but His modest two-story house resembles many others throughout Chi- it’s a fun diversion. Apparently, fish cago, but because of what happened inside those walls, that structure have also learned to social distance. may not have a peer anywhere. The house was a home, a crash pad for blues artists from around the world and a rehearsal studio. “Got My Mojo Workin’ (Live)” Fast-forward to 2021: That house, once a beacon on the South Side, bears a huge X on the outside. The X warns any potential entrants that by Muddy Waters it could collapse. But the wrecking ball will have to wait. In the summer of 2020, the Chicago Defender reported that the National Trust for His- Irresistible! It has everything that toric Preservation awarded a $50,000 grant to renovate the 131-year- is great about blues party music, old building. When the work is done, it will include a recording studio, revved up on overdrive. small performance venue and a community garden. If that works out, the Muddy Waters Museum, or whatever they call it, will become another pixel on the flickering blues map of Chicago. But if we all want to keep the blues alive, at some point, we will need to see the whole image at some point. Where are these efforts headed? Chicago has so much music history—emanating from the blues out- ward—and it deserves celebration and recognition. No one can say what popular music would sound like today if you uproot the artistic trees that took root in places like Woodward Court, Chess Records and Muddy Waters’ old house. But I think we can agree it would be diminished.

A New Movement by Sharon Hoyer Despite Diminishing Funding that Threatens its Future, Dance in Chicago Soars. And Now is the Time for Equity to Take Wing A couple of years ago, I attended a performance by Lucky Plush Individual artists working in broad and deep lexicons of Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE Productions at the Harris Theater. At intermission, the house movement showed work in small venues and festivals, and lights came up and Adrian Danzig, founder of 500 Clown and also in museums, churches, private homes, parks, bars and spaces not traditionally considered performance venues, spouse to Lucky Plush co-director Leslie Buxbaum Danzig, responding to their environments and expanding ideas of what dance can be and where it takes place. Chicagoans walked to the edge of the stage and did something I hadn’t seen saw more types of dance performed by different types of at the Harris before or since. Danzig encouraged the audience dancers: tap, hip-hop, aerial dance, burlesque, street dance, to stick around, or return to their seats after visits to the re- butoh, traditional dances from West Africa, Mexico, India, strooms and bar, for the fifteen-minute break in the performance. Ireland, Spain, Japan. You name it, dancers in Chicago were doing it well and drawing an audience. He then conducted a paddle-raise for production costs, rehears- Collaboration between dancers and artists working in al time, wages and healthcare costs. It was so energetic and a range of media boomed as well. Original sound compo- charming that it felt like part of the show. sitions, video and projection, spoken text and dramaturgy became more commonplace in a dance show than tutus and tights. Pivot Arts brought together performers of all stripes in an annual festival that decompartmentalized the- Of course, it wasn’t. It was an act of necessity, a gambit atrical forms. Links Hall’s move in 2013 to the shared space to meet baseline financial needs of a dance-theater com- with Constellation cross-pollinated jazz and experimental pany that had, by any other measure, achieved success. musicians with their natural physical theater counterparts. Lucky Plush tours extensively in the United States and Programs like Synapse Arts’ improv blind dates “collision_ abroad; they have performed at the Joyce Theater in New theory” and 2020’s “96 Hours” threw together first-time York and the Kennedy Center in D.C. They are the only collaborations between dancers, musicians, filmmakers 24 dance company to receive a MacArthur Award for Creative and puppeteers that frequently sparked further projects & Effective Institutions. As in most companies, Lucky Plush and friendships. Chicago, legendary home to cutting-edge members teach dance classes; unlike most, they also lead storefront theater, was clearly also fertile ground for exper- corporate team-building workshops. More than a dozen imentations in movement-based arts. sponsors pepper the footer of their website. So why does High-profile players took note. Thanks in part to the a decorated mid-sized company presenting on one of construction and visionary leadership of the Harris The- the biggest stages in the Loop need to hustle a few bucks ater—first under Michael Tiknis, then under Patricia Bar- at intermission? retto, who passed away in 2019 at age forty-five—the city This is but one highly visible example of how much danc- was internationally recognized as a location for U.S. pre- ers, choreographers and companies, large and small, strug- mieres of big-budget productions. A recent notable exam- gled to keep together body and soul before lives and live- ple: the English National Ballet 2019 tour of Akram Khan’s lihoods were threatened, upended and cut tragically short masterpiece, “Giselle.” Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Baus- by the pandemic. A little over a year ago, Sustain Arts, a ch was scheduled to appear in Chicago for the first time project of data-gathering nonprofit Candid, published in May 2020, a cancellation that stings to this day. “Mapping the Dance Landscape in Chicagoland.” The re- But this surge of talent—and, according to the Sustain port compiled information on dance organizations (size, Arts report, double the number of dance studios from 2002 location, budget), audiences (demographics, income, lo- nurturing even more—was not met by a proportional cation) and funders (how much, from where and to whom). growth of funding. State and federal grant dollars, already The findings, while unsurprising, are striking. an embarrassment when placed beside European coun- The first finding: the dance sector has grown. Over the terparts, plummeted in the aftermath of the 2008 reces- last decade, small and mid-sized companies proliferated. sion and never recovered. Private philanthropic funding for

dance did increase, but not nearly enough to fertilize a fast-grow- Perhaps in the years ahead we will see Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE ing sector into full flower. Particularly not for artists and com- a dance landscape in Chicago free panies working, living, making or presenting on the South and of deserts, with fertile ground, 25 West Sides. Eighty-six percent of dance funding in Chicago went to the top twenty recipients, and the top three recipients—that’s citywide, beneath the feet of artists. right, three—received over half of all grant dollars awarded. The Pareto principle, also known as the eighty-twenty rule, strikes Now in the early days of 2021, with national health and eco- again, benefitting, as it so often does in resource distribution nomic crises at full tilt, not to mention the ravages of forty years under capitalism, the least vulnerable, best-funded, predomi- of neoliberal economic policy increasing income inequality to nantly white organizations. feudal levels, it’s hard to see the immediate future of cultural funding as especially bright. But thanks to the ingenuity of Chi- Which is not to say that those large, better-funded dance or- cago’s dance community through a lean ten years and a hellish ganizations didn’t struggle. Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, one ten months, Chicago remains, and will remain a mecca for dance. of the shiniest jewels in the city’s arts and culture crown, has Thanks to the tireless work of generations of activists, those in been pummeled by dwindling budgets—seen in shrinking com- positions of power are awakening to entrenched racial and eco- pany size and dancer contract length, the discontinuation of nomic injustices and shifting their priorities as they are held to Hubbard Street 2, its second company, and the heartbreaking account. And the traction of social justice movements, deep closure of Lou Conte Dance Studio after forty-six years of hous- beneath the pressure of the pandemic, is moving the dance ing the company and training dancers of all ages. If an interna- sector to reflect and change, especially in three ways: Invest- tionally renowned contemporary dance company with volumes ment in communities of color, a deeper commitment to equity of repertory by world-famous choreographers and banners work and the realization that new technologies, embraced right adorning lightposts down Randolph Street is forced into pun- now out of necessity, have a permanent place in the art form. ishing austerity, how is a small company or an emerging artist— particularly an artist working outside the Loop or North Side, an Communities of color artist of color, an artist working in a non-mainstream dance style—to survive? In a meager arts funding pie, dance gets a When it comes to arts infrastructure—as with access to food, sliver, which is then divvied up so that the small companies— healthcare, public transportation and education—Black and Lat- defined in the report as those with annual budgets under inx neighborhoods in Chicago are consistently disinvested and $50,000—are left to fight over crumbs. The flourishing of dance under-resourced. But new South Side-based venues and incu- in our city is a testament to the grit of the artists who live here. bators established in the past decade point to a decentralization of live arts presentation on the horizon. Theaster Gates’ Rebuild (above) Hubbard Street Dancer Alysia Johnson and artist Rena Butler in “A Tale of Two” by Rena Butler. Screenshot by director Talia Koylass

Foundation transformed a crumbling 1920s-era savings and go’s racial and economic dualism takes a toll on youth with ten- loan at 68th and Stony Island Avenue in 2015 into the Stony Is- derness and fierceness in equal measures—dancers and cam- land Arts Bank, a gallery, library and community and perfor- eras move in harmony, guided by two Black female artists who mance space.The University of Chicago opened the Green Line shared a vision and the experience of growing up on the South Performing Arts Center in 2018 down the street from Washing- Side. The five-part dance film “LITANY,” by Jenn Freeman (aka ton Park. Last year, undeterred by the pandemic, Red Clay Po’Chop) and made with Jordan Phelps of VAM Studio, is a Dance continued to build out a 3,700-square-foot studio space crackling, sweeping, visual poem wrapped in burlap and steeped in Woodlawn. By the time you read this, the company should in sweat, a meditation on Blackness, sex, gender and sprituali- have moved into their new home from a shared gymnasium in ty that leaves the viewer hungry for another chapter. These the Fuller Park Fieldhouse. dance films didn’t just attempt to momentarily fill a live-theater void, the work opened a window to possibilities for the form. The Joyce Foundation, a major funder of small- and mid-sized arts organizations in the Great Lakes region, awarded its larg- As many have pointed out, digital works are often accessible est-ever grant to the new Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project without charge to those who already have a dependable inter- in 2019, as well as providing financial support to Ayodele Drum net connection, or at least far less than a theater ticket price. & Dance, the Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Com- Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE pany, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Forward Mo- mentum Chicago, Joel Hall Dancers & Center, Muntu Dance Theatre, NAJWA Dance Corps and Red Clay Dance. If funders recover from the pan- demic year and prioritize Black artists and the South and West Sides (INVEST South/West under the Mayor Lori Lghtfoot administration could also be- come a driver), momentum will continue. Equity work is not optional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion have been on the lips and agendas of organizations for a long time. Measuring, evaluating and reporting tangible prog- ress on DEI is as expected of performing arts lead- ers as development, programming and fiscal man- agement—and understood to be integral to each. Power structures within organizations large and small are under scrutiny, and the makeup of boards—including the types of resources members provide—are being rethought. We’re only starting to see changes in the faces of leadership, which in dance have, historically, been majority white. Uni- versity programs are taking a critical look at white power structures in dance pedagogy, which privi- lege ballet and other European dance forms. And 26 white-led organizations are considering redress. Khecari has for a long time offered a valuable example of put- Motivated by new global audiences, some dancemakers may ting their money where their values are. The group pays every- choose to make film a priority over live performance. Ten new one in the organization the same rate and offers a scale for tick- $10,000 grants (in addition to ten $10,000 Lab Artist grants et prices that is the most accurate reflection of the wealth awarded annually), for developing dance using digital technol- disparity in dance audiences I’ve ever seen. Khecari is commit- ogies from The Chicago Dancemakers Forum, an organization ting ten percent of their annual budget to support anti-racism, that deserves a bit of credit for the boom in groundbreak- women in dance, Native Americans and the environment. Tan- ing dance in Chicago over the last several years, is sure to gible commitments to economic and racial equity will be in- water more verdant dance-filmmaker collaborations in the year creasingly foundational to dance organizations of all sizes. to come. Chicago is fortunate to have CDF, and could use a dozen New technologies are a part of the picture more organizations just like it. While dancers and companies will no doubt need to continue appealing for donations in email, The tsunami of live-streamed performances and dance films social media and, once stages reopen, during intermissions, per- was an effect of the pandemic, but the wave of video could have haps in the years ahead we will see a dance landscape in Chi- a significant impact on Chicago dance in the long run. Will au- cago free of deserts, with fertile ground, citywide, beneath the diences return to theaters? Of course. Even more so. And how feet of artists. much richer the art form will be as fruitful collaborations be- tween dancers and video artists mature and grow. Choreogra- pher Rena Butler and videographer Talia Koylass’ “A Tale of Two” (above) Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch with Hubbard Street Dance last summer looked at how Chica- in “Palermo Palermo” (photo by Meyer Originals)

Imperfect Union Race & Sports: A Chicago Relationship by Scoop Jackson “As long as we can count the number of Black people in these While the players played for Henson, they came there be- Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE positions on our hands, the perception will remain that the cause of Collins. Which was why he was known as “The Archi- white people own and manage the plantation and the players tect.” He built a program. 27 work it. They are high-priced labor to the billionaire owners, but make a pretty penny in comparison to the rest of the So in 1996 when Henson decided to retire from coaching Il- working world. As long as that disparity remains, African lini basketball, it became an ignorantly and universally assumed Americans will always be unfairly viewed as inferior in some conclusion in Chicago basketball circles that Collins was going way. Unless you believe the fallacy that Blacks are less to get his overdue shot at sliding one seat over to fill the Illinois capable, how can you disagree?” head coaching vacancy. It only seemed right, fair and forgone. We, instead, historically, were wrong. They, instead, historically, — J.R. Gamble, “The Shadow League” went with someone else. Someone who already had head-coach- ing experience at the NCAA level. Someone with a better ré- When the news broke of the passing of former UIC sumé. Someone who was “more like Lou.” Lon Kruger fit a bill—a head basketball coach Jimmy Collins last month, “description”—that Jimmy Collins didn’t. And that description an immediate sense of anger emerged inside many wasn’t on Kruger’s resume, but it was apparent in his sit-down of us who knew exactly what he wasn’t afforded. interviews and whenever he was on-camera. Kruger was white, And why. See, before Collins was the head coach Collins wasn’t. Far from it. And in many minds, to those of us at UIC, he was famously (and to a large degree “leg- who’ve lived through lifetimes of situations like this, this one was endarily”) the top assistant coach during Lou Hen- simply a more egregious continuation of what had become our son’s thirteen-year University of Illinois run that norm inside the politics and power structure of sports. shaped the basketball culture we live in throughout the state of Illinois. While Collins didn’t “lead” the The outrage, internal and restricted for the most part to bars, “Flying” Illini that was one Sean Higgins shot away barbershops and basements of Black folks in Chicago, sides from making it to the NCAA championship game South and West. Another Black “I” in the growing list of one of in 1989 (a team that was so dynamic the Fab Five our own being shit-on based on the color of his skin. Been there, at the University of Michigan modeled themselves been that, got the scars and keloids as proof. Yet as “off-base” as after that U of I squad), he did build it. Collins was we may have been in the Coach Collins decision-making pro- the one who came to the city, the inner-city Chi- cess by the University of Illinois, it never changed the fact that cago concrete so many white scouts and coaches the decision made us feel a certain way. And those feelings were of big-name schools were uncomfortable setting rooted in a history built on a racial fault line that shaped the foot on, as well as the surrounding Chicago sub- framework of race and sports in Chicago. So while Collins not urbs, to scout and recruit the players who ended becoming the Fighting Illini’s head coach was not the straw that up becoming one of the greatest basketball teams broke the back of the camel, it did become the one that stirred a Chicago has ever adopted. cocktail called “We Know Bullshit When We Drink It.” Fast-forward. 2012. Closer to home. New Year’s Eve. Black Monday. Pun intentional. The Chicago Bears fire Lovie Smith as head coach after nine seasons of service and a 10-6 record to end his final season. Sure, his team had started the season 7-1, only to fall apart on the back eight (games), sure, only a few years prior he’d taken them to the Super Bowl, sure, he had to deal with front-office dysfunction and undermining that was beyond his control, sure, he had to deal with Jay Cutler, but none of that mattered when it came to his removal. The “for sure” was that his Bears teams had only made three playoff appearances in his nine seasons as head coach. And the other “for sure,” for us—especially watching a coach get fired with a four-games- above .500 record—wasn’t the color of Lovie’s skin, it was the

reality to us that the Bears probably would have kept him around • Minnie Minosa’s 1987 retelling, in a had he been white. The same privilege they afforded Jay Cutler, feature in The Reader, of being in our minds. The same privilege the Cubs extended Lou Pin- stopped by white Chicago police offi- iella and not Dusty Baker, in our minds. The same treatment the cers indicating that if he were a white Bulls gave Toni Kukoc and not Scottie Pippen, in our minds. The Cubs player he wouldn’t have been same adornment fans gave Brian Urlacher and not Lance Briggs, harassed: “Some undercover cops in our minds. The same way the state used to only allow one stopped me. I hadn't done anything CPS school into the state’s basketball tournament while white wrong. But they started asking me school districts downstate seemed to have a whole unrestrict- questions and looking through the car. ed set of restrictions. In our minds. I said they wouldn't be doing this if I The dynamic of race inside of sports is not and has never were Jody Davis. You wouldn't be do- been relegated to a player versus owner paradigm. The levels ing this if I were [Ryne] Sandberg. You of power, control and white maleness are spread across the en- wouldn't be doing this if I were [Rick] tire coalition of sports in Chicago and go far deeper than a sim- Sutcliffe. [all white Cubs players] ple management versus labor construct. And while sports and You’re doing this because I'm Black, race are both an international and national paradox of life, like have nice clothes and drive a nice car. politics, all sports is local. And our sports in Chi when viewed Call the police superintendent. Call through the prism of race is no different than our politics. Ugly the president of the United States, the and beautiful at the same time, bullshit and real simultaneously. governor, the mayor. They'll tell you It divides and unifies us. Just the racial polarization that keeps who I am.” (Chicago Reader) Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE the White Sox and Cubs binary is an almost-too-easy go-to to use as a primary example. But it’s also too omnipresent and his- • On the racism that envelopes the torically applicable to ignore. Yet the Blackhawks and Bulls can Blackhawks for their continued use of share the same space for generations and not deal with the a Native American as their logo, mas- same racial issues in two sports that are diametrically opposite cot and identity, Dan Bernstein, leg- on racial lines and structure. endary broadcaster at 670 The Score, Yet it remains the hidden-in-plain sight disturbances that cre- acknowledged in an interview with ate our disharmony. Incidents and insights when stacked up tell WBEZ last year, “It's a cartoon face of a tale of one city. an Indian. That's what it is. And there are many people who believe [it's] not • When Kenny Williams was named general manager of the OK. People aren't mascots.” (NPR) White Sox in October 2000, he returned home and found a A mascot they named Tommy in horrific message spray-painted on the side of his house. 2001. So indigenous, so respectful. “‘No n----- should run the Chicago White Sox,’ capital W-H-I-T-E.” (Williams said in an emotional video released • Brandon Marshall (apparently/al- by the White Sox.) legedly) calls out a white quarterback (Cutler) while playing for a white or- • In February 1994 Scottie Pippen calls out Bulls fans. Noting ganization (Bears), verbalizing in the how the fans at Chicago Stadium “don’t boo white players locker room everything the team the way they do Black players.” In 2013, Pippen, since retired, wasn’t doing right seven weeks deep 28 still affiliated with the Bulls, after shooting warm-up shots into the 2014 season, seven months after he signed a four- in the United Center prior to a Bulls game, gets spit on year, $39 million deal with the team. He used the word “un- and called a n-----, while he was holding his daughter. (Fans- acceptable” on several occasions during his emotional ided.com) speech; that was called a “tirade” in the media. And while several players didn’t feel Marshall crossed the line, the Bears • In 2006 Dusty Baker, then Cubs manager, decided to open organization must have. Marshall was traded before the fol- up for a USA Today reporter the local hate mail he’d received lowing season. Cutler remained with the team for two more from Cubs fans. Before Baker, Don Baylor spoke of dealing seasons and was released on a $2-million buyout clause af- with similar N-word letters and phone calls, as did Cubs play- ter the guaranteed years on his 2014 seven-year contract ex- ers LaTroy Hawkins and Jacque Jones. (Chicago Tribune) tension had run out. • In Michael Strautmanis’ favorable piece in 2016 for ESPN’s: Which segues too conveniently into the current white power/ “The Undefeated” about the anomaly of being a Black Cubs Black problem hot topic in Chicago sports that Cutler was at fan, he admitted that “Wrigley Field became known as the the center of but was lucky to avoid during his eight-season run drunken playground for yuppies.” In other words: No Blacks as Chicago’s quarterback: Black quarterbacks and the Chicago Allowed. Opening the piece with a great line he said to his Bears. Lingering for decades and having a subliminal effect on wife as he left a Cubs game: “I think we were the only Black how we (Black Chicagoans) feel deep down about the Bears people there.” (The Undefeated) (and the city in general), the “Black Quarterback thing” (or “non- thing” as it is often referred to by we) returned to the forefront (above) Jimmy Collins / Photo courtesy UIC Athletics three years ago when the organization appeared to overtly and blatantly bypass two Black quarterbacks in the NFL draft in or- der to select a white one. For a team that is one of the original

Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE NFL teams to have started only two Black quarterbacks in its I was told once that race in Chicago 29 entire franchise history (not including Henry Burris in 2002 and was like a piece of raw steak on a Jason Campbell in 2012 who each started one game apiece for plate. No sides, no vegetables, the Bears as injury replacements)—especially with the lack of post-Sid Luckman Hall of Fame-level quarterbacks they’ve had no salad, no forks, no knives. Just a on their rosters—is problematic enough. But to double down on beautifully marbled cut of sirloin. that racially legitimate theory and select Mitch Trubisky over now-three-time Pro Bowl quarterback Deshaun Watson and Staring at you. Forcing you to deal the quarterback who is widely considered as possibly the best with it the best way you can. to ever play at that position, Patrick Mahomes, turns a plausible conjecture of racism into a reflection of who the Bears are. And seems obvious [to me] that racial segregation in a given area if we (all Chicagoans) know anything about this segregated gives cover to racist practices within sports, and that those prac- union of seventy-seven neighborhoods we call our crib, who the tices harm the organization and ultimately the city as well. Con- Bears are is a direct reflection of who we be. sider the potential for a totally different postwar Chicago with regards to race and segregation had George Halas led the way Author, journalist and historian Jack Silverstein, whose 2019 with Black players on the Bears, rather than the team's roster “Windy City Gridiron” piece on Bears owner George Halas’ con- and staff reinforcing the city's existing segregation. The ripple nection and role in the twelve-year-long complete disappear- effects of such leadership are too great to count.” ance of Black players in the NFL, from 1934 to 1945, sent an- other ripple through Chicago sports media types who’ve always held Halas in God-like esteem, feels that the “race relations” with the city and sports is damning and defining: \"Chicago is famous for its segregation, both historic and current, and it

Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE Add to Halas’ “questioned and questionable” role along with In some twisted math, that’s eight Black lead/head coaches/ the aforementioned Bears narratives to Mike Ditka’s “I don’t see managers for the five professional teams of Chicago over the all the atrocities going on in this country that people say are go- collective course of 487 years. But no one is supposed to draw ing on/There has been no oppression in the last one hundred any conclusion of race by looking at those numbers over the years that I know of” comments about racial injustice in Amer- course of those years, correct? ica and Urlacher’s more recent true-to-color anti-Jacob Blake/ anti-NBA Instagram post (“NBA players boycott the playoffs Then there are the optics: How the hiring of Lon Kruger over because a dude reaching for a knife, wanted on a felony sexual Jimmy Collins at U of I after Lou Henson retired in 1996 still assault, was shot by police.”) and you have three of the most stings; the Cubs Wrigleyville isolationism; original owner P. W. “Bears” Bears outlining the substructure on which the organiza- Wrigley not having a Black player on the Cubs major league tion was eradicated and upon which it stands. roster until six-and-a-half years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color line; the 2018 peek into the Bulls Draft Day war But is it fair to put this on Chicago sports or is this more of a room where the public saw how white the team of decision-mak- reflection of Chicago the city and the racial agitation we often ers for the franchise actually were; the Bears' anti-Black quar- wear as tattoos and Moncler jackets? terback situation; the overtly white make-up of sports radio and the history of tokenism in Chicago sports media; the way the As Silverstein reminded me when we spoke: “Sports are a legacies of Black women Olympians like Tidye Pickett and Wil- reflection of society, but as we saw in 2020, society can very lye White continue to be ignored; the White Sox overlooking all easily become a reflection of sports.” of the qualified Black candidates for manager and settling for rehiring a retired Tony La Russa. The power in sports rests in ownership, where no profession- al Chicago team has had a minority owner or a minority own- That unspoken aura of racial complicity when it comes to ership group at the helm. That power is often shared in front Chicago sports organizations has been a part of this city since offices but occasionally on the fields and courts of play in the the University of Chicago’s Maroon football team was a power- form of head coaches and lead managers. And while athletes house in the Big Ten a century ago. And if any of the current like Ernie Banks and Minnie Minoso are called “Mr. Cub” and franchises have a surreptitious anti-POC-centered agenda, this “Mr. White Sox” and Walter Payton is universally considered the may be the time to make those old ways and practices disap- G.O.A.T. Bear and Michael Jordan is the G.O.A.T. period (sorry pear. History is starting to look like evidence. LeBron), there remains a powerlessness when looking at the historic dynamic of those placed in position to lead sports teams “In 1963, at a conference in Chicago—a conference to end and franchises in Chicago. all conferences—I said if Black people are as good as we are, they’re just as bad as we are. I encountered a lot of grief A list: with that one. We’re stupid if we think Black people are anything but human. But it’s the old story: We hate the Cubs: In 119 years (since 1902), the Cubs have had only two people we’ve wronged.” Black managers, Dusty Baker and Don Baylor. (Even though they did hire Buck O’Neil in 1962, making him the first Black — Studs Terkel in “Race: How Blacks and Whites Think coach in MLB history and by technicality Ernie Banks took over and Feel About the American Obsession” as manager of the Cubs for one game in 1973, making him the first Black to even “manage” in the major leagues.) Bears: In 101 years (since they started in 1920), the Bears have I was told once that race in Chicago was like a piece of raw only had one Black head coach, Lovie Smith. steak on a plate. No sides, no vegetables, no salad, no forks, no 30 knives. Just a beautifully marbled cut of sirloin. Staring at you. Bulls: In fifty-five years (since they started in 1966), the Bulls Forcing you to deal with it the best way you can. have only had two Black head coaches, Bill Cartwright and Pete In the Chicago Historical Society’s “Encyclopedia of Chicago,” Meyers. And Meyers, in his two stints as Bulls head coach, has there is a section titled “Creation of Chicago Sports.” Among a record of 0-3. Yes, he only coached three games. the key pillars that established the culture of sports that has come to define Chicago, it mentions the Chicago League, and Blackhawks: One in the ninety-five years they’ve been a part how because they were “excluded from such white neighbor- of the NHL (since 1926), but we’re dealing with a sport that has hood and industrial leagues, African Americans organized their only had one Black head coach in the history of the sport (Dirk own teams during these years. Mostly they played Black clubs Graham for fifty-nine games in the 1998-99 season) and the from other cities, but plenty of games pitted white against Black Blackhawks are responsible for that. teams.” And how “the divisions of race grew deeper” beginning in 1919 with Chicago race riots and how in the city “athletics White Sox: In the 117 years since they became the “White Sox” developed their own version of America's deepening segrega- in 1904 (they were the “White Stockings” from 1901-1903), tion.” Singling out how “Jim Crow discrimination in sport flow- they’ve had two: Larry Doby taking over for Bob Lemon in 1978 ered when legendary Chicago White Stockings star Cap Anson for a total of eighty-seven games followed by Jerry Manuel’s refused to let his team play against a top African American pitch- six-season run from 1998-2003 (replaced by Ozzie Guillen). er, achieving a policy of discrimination that soon spread through- out the league.” Ending stating the overall Chicago-centric fact that “sports have been central to Chicago life and identity. Our teams and recreations remain fundamental to our urban (next page) Lovie Smith / Photo: Matt Quinnan self-definition.”

as the most powerful sports figure in Chicago’s Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE history, “Black Chicago” sees a brotha who— with the exception of his final three years here 31 when his contract paid out at $30-$33 million In Chicago, we know race. Probably better than most because per year—at some points was the most under- it shapes our city in ways and on levels that most other places paid person in sports. A slave to Jerry Reins- in America are oblivious to. Chicago is a sports city. One of the dorf’s rhythm. Regardless of team payroll, sal- greatest in this country. We “do” sports in ways most other plac- ary cap or player market value across the NBA es in America are oblivious to. Whether it’s Studs Terkel or Lou at the time, when it’s known as it was in 1995- Palmer, or Tim Weigel or Lacy Banks, the truth is evident that 96 that Jordan had fallen to the thirty-second while sports may be the great equalizer in many other cities, that highest paid player in the league and that the is not necessarily fact when it comes to race in ours. This is Chi: way the contract was constructed his annual We do race differently, too. salary was decreasing over the life of his deal with the Bulls, our immediate Black default What the “Encyclopedia” failed to speak on was the way the “jump to” was: “Boston would have never done situations involving race that find themselves at the intersection that to Larry Bird.” The actuality that Jordan put with sports in Chicago make us feel. And how the history of those Chicago and Chicago sports on the global map overlapping feelings leads us as Black sports fans in this city to in a way no sports figure had ever done, mak- draw conclusions that may not be true, but are true to us. Because ing the Chicago organization he played for mil- our reality is fucked, warped by, as Terkel wrote, a history of be- lions, to be maxing out at $4 million per year ing wronged. Or a systemic hundred-plus-year background of was more racist than it was cheap. That’s the not being treated right. Either way. Take MJ as the archetype. feeling we were left to live with. One we still While Chicago (and most of the world) looks at Michael Jordan struggle and have to deal with. Is that just the team owner or is that a team owner simply do- ing what Chicago team owners do? The difficul- ty is not us discovering the answer, but not be- ing able to separate the two when we do. In Chicago, we turn sports heroes into gods and the teams they play for into empires. In the end, the Bears can argue that they are not rac- ist because Vince Evans was once their quar- terback, selected by them in the sixth round in the 1977 NFL Draft. And they can claim they once had Kordell Stewart play the position. And these two QBOC are something the Green Bay Packers organization has never had. The Bulls can argue that their recent hiring of Marc Eversley as GM, making him the first Black GM in the organization's fifty-four-year history, re- moves them from the racist target. The White Sox can claim not only a history of diversity at the manager position, but the role Kenny Wil- liams has played over the last twenty years as one of the highest-ranking Black team execu- tives in all of baseball. The Blackhawks, even with the logo-mas- cot-name looming heavy over their current state, can deflect not only to the entire NHL by saying “look at what we have done that no one else in the sport has,” but they can point to their fan base and make an argument that it probably is one of the most racially diverse in the NHL and probably the second most eth- nically and racially balanced one in the city behind the Bears. The Cubs can make their arguments, so can the University of Illinois, the Sky, DePaul, U of C, Loyola, the IHSA, the Chicago Park District leagues, the Chicago Sports and Social Clubs, etc. If so, all would be fair. Because even as there are athletic dis- parities, income and access-to-income disparities, execu- tive-and-business-background disparities, cultural and educa- tional disparities, economic and geographical disparities that all lead to some form of racial disparity, sports, once everything has been said and dissected, is supposedly and fundamentally rooted-in and based-on—and all about—fairness. Or… Is it all and only about winning and the power that comes with it?

Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUEMidway to Java The Forgotten Javanese Village in Chicago that Once Thrilled America by Ted C. Fishman Each little byway [at the World’s Columbian Exposition] was touched by enchantment. The Midway was a never-ending source of gayety…Most enchanting of all, perhaps, of the glorified side-shows…was the Java Village, with its houses and industries straight from the South Seas, and its exquisite, tiny women, dainty as porcelain, strange as oriental gods. In their own theater a new kind of charm was revealed that was partly grotesque, a grace that was stiff with decorative gesture. — Caroline Kirkland writing a remembrance of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, Los Angeles Times, 1919 (quoted in “Javaphilia” by Henry Spiller) 32 From its dawn, Newcity has been a kind of world’s fair. I was on the cultural and culinary beats when the pub- lication began, shortly after I moved back to Chicago after living in far-off alien places such as Japan and New York City. About a year before, I finished a happy two years in Indonesia where I shared a bamboo house with bats and rats in a village inside the Special Region of Yogyakarta, the cultural heart of Java. In Chicago, Newcity allowed me to plumb the city’s museums, galleries and foods with a license to go wide and go deep. I gravitated to where I could experience the faraway up close, and my stories took their place in the pages that covered Chicago’s world of wonders—outsider art, black-box theaters producing Kabuki Shakespeare, samba in basement bars, the city’s little-known neighborhood museums that imported art and performance from this or that home country. The publication is a fair that’s never stopped. And for me, press credentials in hand, it has long been a passport to a particular obsession that ties me back to Java and to the remarkable history of a Javanese village at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.

Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE 33 Though lost almost entirely from the public imagination homes from wood and thatchery brought from the colonies. and relegated to a footnote in Chicago’s history, the Java Village There was a small mosque and residence for the representatives was the single most popular attraction on the fair’s Midway Plai- of their Dutch overseers among thirty-six or more buildings set sance. The village was a mostly authentic reproduction of the within a large compound near the giant Ferris Wheel. The vil- villages in then-Dutch East Indies. The “villagers” built their lage was more popular than the bellydancers, the first to appear in the United States, in the architecturally spectacular Turkish Java Village at the World's Columbian Exposition, 1893 Chicago. Pavilion, or the “Eskimous” braving summer heat to look authen- From the book “Midway Types: A Book of Illustrated Lessons About tically Arctic in their seal furs. (At one point the “Eskimous” got The People of the Midway Plaisance, World’s Fair 1893,” published by into a street brawl with the Turks, and made the pages of the The American Engraving Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1894 Tribune.) More popular, too, than the donkey driving “boys” on

the Streets of Cairo, who, when they weren’t on strike to keep ing with the objects from the Pacific region and with the records their tip money, gave visitors rides. The donkeys also provided on how and where they were collected by the museum’s early extra, um, raw material, which the promoters may have hoped expeditions to Micronesia and Melanesia. The objects included contributed to the exotic squalor of the attraction (and which many handmade string purses in many local styles that revealed offended Egyptian visitors to the fair). It outdrew the Chinese where any given bag was made, which was often a different Theater and Joss House, which featured Chinese opera and or- place from where it was collected. They found that the objects, chestra, and was decorated, according to one souvenir book, when cataloged and traced, revealed a vast network of trade with “idols of horrid visage.” If the village truly were the most among tribal groups separated by great distances and long as- popular attraction on the Midway, more people entered its gates sumed to be largely disconnected. I didn’t recall any string bags than rode in Mr. Ferris’ marvel. Of course, I knew of the wheel in the “Traveling the Pacific” exhibition, even though the objects and other fair sites, such as the Japanese garden and the fa- did show how peoples of the Pacific traveled and traded, and, mous beer house, from the commonly reproduced images of through the research on them, were changing the narrative of the fair, but not the Java Village. a large section of the globe. The modern anthropologists trav- My first awareness of the Java Village resulted from a trip in eled to some of the villages in the Sepik communities on the 1989 to The Field Museum to cover the then-new exhibition, “Trav- northern coast of Papua New Guinea where their forerunners eling the Pacific.” The exhibit—most of which is still in the Regen- had collected and brought with them old photo albums—also stein Halls of the Pacific—introduced the natural history of Oce- in the museum’s research collection—that show the grandpar- ania well. It offered a feel for the kinds of places I knew from my ents and great- and great-great grandparents of the present-day own island hopping; it even featured a little tropical shop that sold inhabitants, who in turn were delighted and had stories to tell. Spam. It had stunning objects such as the spirit-endowed canoe “One thing missing from ‘Traveling the Pacific,’” says Jaap paddles of a kind no other museum in town could match. But Hoogstraten, who arrived at The Field in 2000 and is now the Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE much of the Field’s rare and rich collection was left out. I felt that director of exhibitions, “is that even though it aimed to tell the there was too much re-creation of scenes and not enough of the story of a region, there are no stories about the individuals that genuine stuff. The exhibit designers clearly thought that visitors used any of the objects in the exhibit.” Hoogstraten gives “Trav- would be happier engaging with a story than with more artifacts. eling the Pacific” high marks for breaking away from an old, co- The theme-park-like elements of “Traveling the Pacific” were lonially inflected mode, but feels that the narratives of individ- meant to combat the Field’s image as a storehouse of dead things: uals can be key in making bigger narratives come alive. dead rocks, dead dinos and bugs, dead lions, dead birds, dead When I mentioned to the ornery anthropologists back then Egyptians and dead exhibit copy that deadened the minds of that I had lived in Yogyakarta, they pulled me into the behind- children and adults alike. In the late 1980s, exhibit designers had the-scenes hall where Research Collections live, and marched begun to wrestle with the fact that many museums were more me over to the shelves and archival boxes that held some of the powerful displays of the history of museums than of the world first objects the museum owned. They were from the royal work- they collected from. Objects tended to be displayed like order- shops and village household craft makers of nineteenth-centu- ly treasures in cases, as if mere possession of them demonstrat- ry Java. There were wooden theater masks worn by dancers ed museums’ power to possess them. It was a colonial mindset when they enact chapters from classic epic stories. There were exhibit designers were keen on combating, too. ceremonial metal objects from the court of a Javanese Sultan I also wondered whether the new-style exhibit resulted from from Solo, a regency not far from where I lived in Yogyakarta. a shift in academic anthropology that aggressively rejected the And more. I’d seen similar objects in Indonesia, but these were obsession of earlier scholars on collecting the “material culture,” far finer. The face of one mask looked like it was fashioned from the literally tangible artifacts of cultures, and focused more on gold leaf. And, of course, the Field ensured its items were exqui- understanding relationships through observation, theory and sitely preserved. I gasped, overcome the way treasure hunters analysis. Stuff be damned. As an avid museumgoer, and per- in movies are when they meet a talisman from their dreams. 34 haps more as a traveler who yearned for objects that could keep These objects were transporting, carrying me back to my bam- me close, in some way, to places far off in space and time, I boo house, and the gangways I prowled surrounding Yogyakar- missed the stuff. The meaning of stuff was profound. It was, and ta sultan’s palace, filled with artists’ workshops and dance stu- is, made with effort, by people, for a purpose. Whole personal dios. The objects recalled the friends, the music and Javanese narratives, heck, whole histories, could be wrapped around the cultural milieu I missed. My hosts smiled. They mentioned that right objects. The exhibit designer may have regarded the story the museum also owned a full gamelan orchestra, the collection as the main stuff of the show, but to me stuff always comes with of gongs, kettles, drums, marimba-like sets and stringed instru- story, deep story, and is not the enemy of it. There is, in other ments that produce the circular, slow, meditative music like that words, a Rosetta Stone in every pot. my village neighbors played late into the nights. And has ever Surprisingly, when I tried to dig deeper into the Field’s design since been grooved in my ear. decisions, I found the anthropologists at the museum who Where did this all come from, I wondered? I learned that these worked in the region agreed with me, and were just as critical objects were left to the then-new museum after the World’s Co- of the exhibition. They were, in fact, angry about it and had de- lumbian Exposition ended. The Java Village was dispersed along clined to work on it. In their own research, they had been work- with all the rest. The museum inherited a lot from the fair, in- cluding some of the Egyptian mummies that remain star attrac- tions. The Java Village didn’t just leave goods that had been (opposite page) “The Fiddler’s Family,” “The Javanese Fiddler,” carried from the Indies, the “villagers” who came had the skills and “A Cheerful Actress” from the Java Village at the World's to produce many of them. They were a relatively large contin- Columbian Exposition, 1893 Chicago. From the book “Midway Types: gent, between 140 and 165 of them. Counts vary. And because A Book of Illustrated Lessons About The People of the Midway Plaisance, among the villagers there were births and deaths, the numbers World’s Fair 1893,” published by The American Engraving Company, changed. The women produced intricate batiks in the style of Chicago, Illinois, 1894

the Solo court, men and women both made woven goods and Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE musical instruments from bamboo. Some of those objects—such as batik sarongs—remain in the Field collection. Others were 35 sold at the fair. That is what I learned on that assignment from Newcity. The article on “Traveling the Pacific” ran. I heard that it upset some of the exhibit people at the museum but I heard from the an- thropologists that I talked to at the museum that they were hap- py. I also heard from others at universities elsewhere who had their own stories to pitch, which helped me do my bit to stoke Newcity’s ongoing world’s fair in print. So often, Newcity has always taken me as a writer—and reader—to places in Chicago that astonish me with their connection to a bigger world and deeper history than other, more hesitant, large-circulation pub- lications in town are willing to give writers enough rope to delve into. If a subject isn’t hot enough—or is too hot—for other out- lets in town, it can still be cool enough for Newcity. The “Traveling the Pacific” exhibit has grown on me over time. In retrospect, I see a deep contradiction in my original argument about it, a contradiction that I should have awakened to when I first beheld the Indonesian artifacts in the Research Collection. They meant so much to me because I came to those objects with a story of my own. And when I describe the objects to oth- ers, I bring my story to that telling. More than that, it was the addition of the story of the 1893 villagers, added to my own vil- lage experiences, that ignited my imagination. I also now ap-

preciate more the meticulous and beautiful dioramas, a museum What I have yet to find is a art that is growing rare, and are themselves worth a visit. contemporary description of In the thirty-one years since that Pacific exhibit opened, I the experience in Chicago as told by have been collecting what artifacts I can find that tie to the Java one of the Java Village residents. Village on the Midway. They are photographs and prints most- ly, culled from the outpouring of illustrated books sold to me- morialize the fair. There is also a wax-cylinder recording of the gamelan orchestra captured at the time of the fair, perhaps even from that of other parts of Java that they don’t readily mix. The while the players and dancers were in performance (thirty-three gamelan is also an emblem of one of the Java Village’s biggest such recordings are available through the Library of Congress). challenges. West Java is in many ways culturally distinct from the These are the oldest recordings of a gamelan orchestra in the mainstream of Javanese culture. West Java has its own language, world. I have vintage hand-colored photos that show how dance Sundanese, and its own cultural traditions, including music. The performances took place in the 1,000-seat theater on a stage gamelan musicians heralded from the plantations of the Dutch with painted tropical scenery complete with palms and volca- sponsors of the Chicago-Java Village Syndicate which organized noes. Music also accompanied puppet plays, which had casts the Java Villages in both Chicago and Paris. The dancers in the of dozens of wooden wayang golek hand puppets and a pup- Chicago village, however, came from the Solo court in Central peteer who had a distinct voice for each. I have not been able Java and shared neither a language nor musical tradition with the to learn if the stories on stage were translated or summarized. musicians. Most of the musicians were, in effect, peasant serfs The gamelan and the stage performances were part of an effort of Dutch planters, while the dancers were royal subjects of a sul- to replicate in Chicago the shows that had been a sensation at tan. Some dancers may even have been from the Sultan’s extend- Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889. In Paris, John Singer Sar- ed family. The shows they performed together were likely the re- gent painted a sensuous if unfinished portrait of one of the Ja- sult of necessary compromises between two groups which did vanese woman dancers. The 1889 expo had two gamelans and not always get along. The village even had its own constables— French composer Claude Debussy spent long hours listening from the plantation—perhaps to keep order and, presumably, to to gamelan performances, transfixed. His music, and that of keep the residents from straying into the fair and city beyond. (I Ravel, too, incorporated the sounds of the Javanese gamelan, have found no record of anyone from the village staying behind influencing European music in a way perhaps analogous to how in Chicago following the fair.) the importation of Japanese woodblock prints influenced the Happily, Chicago is now one of America’s centers for gamelan art of the Impressionists. music, with excellent local ensembles for both Javanese and Strangely, the gamelan music in Chicago had no such Balinese music. The Field Museum’s gamelan may now be too long-lasting impact. Music, in general, was an important ele- fragile to play, though until recently it occasionally made it into ment of the fair. The infant Chicago Symphony Orchestra per- a performance. The fact that it could have been played at all af- formed there. German, Irish, Viennese and Hawaiian ensembles ter decades of disuse was the result of a meticulous restoration played daily on the Midway. Scott Joplin was not allowed into in the 1970s by a team that included ethnomusicologist Sue the fair, but he played nearby. There was even a subgenre of Carter-De Vale. Carter-De Vale’s detailed chronicling of the novelty songs inspired by the fair, some with vaguely exotic mel- gamelan’s history and role at the 1893 fair are the source of many odies. The most famous of these is probably “The Streets of of the details I have learned along the way, often indirectly at Cairo”, a hoochie-coochie tune inspired by the erotic gyrations first since the results of her research made it into the folklore of dancers who took on the role of “Little Egypt.” Yet despite the around the instrument from which I gleaned snippets over the more-than-one-million people who attended or passed by the last few decades from multiple tellers. On a trip to Java in the Java Village, American composers apparently heard little they seventies, Carter-De Vale pieced together evidence on the 36 thought worth borrowing, neither for concert halls nor beer gar- Field’s gamelan that date its creation to the 1840s, which would dens. C.W. Dalbey, who composed for John Philip Sousa’s band, mean that the orchestra in Chicago is also one of the oldest ex- which was at the fair in 1893, wrote “Twenty Minutes on the tant sets in the world. Midway,” about thirty seconds of which ever-so-slightly refer- What I have yet to find is a contemporary description of the ences the Java Village. Other than that, nada. Donald C. Meyer, experience in Chicago as told by one of the Java Village resi- a professor of music at Lake Forest College, created a musical dents. With 129 years of hindsight, the idea of setting aside a map of the Midway, showing just what a visitor could hear walk- whole boulevard for carnival displays based on so-called exot- ing the fair. He’s also collected the popular songs inspired by ic peoples, some of whom the press routinely labeled as “sav- the fair. I asked him whether his trove offered any hint of the ages,” is cringeworthy. An Indonesian friend who recently be- music of the Java Village. He could think of none. I could find no came aware of the 1893 compound penned a strongly indignant evidence that the music of the Java Village worked its way into note about the “human zoo.” One anthropologist who studies American music of the day. the fair, Ira Jacknis of the University of California’s Hearst Mu- The gamelan tunes at the Chicago fair, however, were likely not seum of Anthropology, says that most people likely “came with the same as those played on the gamelan in Paris. For one, the their prejudices and left with those same prejudices.” Looking instrument is a highly local and archaic variation of the orches- over the captions to the photos in the souvenir books evokes tra—with its own tuning—that came from huge Dutch plantations both laughter and revulsion. One photo of a young married cou- at Parakan Salak and Sinagar, in the Sundanese region of West ple featured in “The Magic City” has a typical bloviation: “Their Java, which is also where the musicians were drafted from. For religion is ostensibly Mohammedanism, but it is a religion of another, these Sundanese players were likely unfamiliar with the conquest rather than faith, for they generally entertain the be- repertoire of Central Java, since the musical and performance liefs inherited from their remote ancestors, which is polytheistic traditions of West Java’s Sundanese people are different enough and shamanistic, of witchcraft and diabolism. Their customs are

[as] peculiar as their beliefs… marriage with them is only a con- show off what the country and its people offer today. The Field Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 — 35TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE venience.” And look at the enticing but mostly gag-worthy quote Museum today has the exhibition chops to make a go of it should that opens this essay. it muster the resources. It already made a kind of miniature at- 37 tempt in the 2013 exhibition, “Opening the Vaults: Wonders of Not everyone was as callous. A cadre of America’s first pro- the 1893 World’s Fair,” where it included the gamelan and a few fessional anthropologists, including seminal figures Frederick other objects. That exhibition struck me as in some ways as heir Putnam and Franz Boas, who were enlisted to help with cultur- to “Traveling the Pacific,” in that it invited visitors on a journey al and human displays, came to have reservations over how the with both story and objects that entered the museum’s collec- fair surrendered its educational mission to for-profit exhibition- tions early in its history. But the storytelling was richer and the ism on the Midway. For Boas’ part, he reflected on the specta- context of the objects far clearer. One of its recently opened cles on The Midway and, in retrospect, expressed repugnance. permanent exhibits, “The Cyrus Tang Hall of China,” is a mas- Yet the ethnic displays were also part of the cauldron in which terful combination of objects and story. It is the only exhibition academic anthropology in the United States was shaped, and of Chinese artifacts I have ever seen that doesn't deaden the the profusion of foreign groups enlivened scholarly and public eyes with obscure descriptive cards that test one’s knowledge imaginations alike. Some of America’s greatest anthropological of the dynasties and the rulers in them. It’s alive with narratives museums are also heirs to the fair. Not just the Field Museum, of the lives of people high and low. The Field also recently rein- but also the Hearst Museum and important collections at The stalled in its halls the “Racial Types” sculptures of Malvina Hoff- Smithsonian and Harvard’s Peabody Museum (both of which man, which were created in the 1930s. Their original installation had their own exhibits at the fair). came so uncomfortably close to society’s now-discarded eu- genics-tinged notions of race that they were removed from pub- The main goal the Chicago-Java Village Syndicate had for the lic view in the 1960s. What made their reinstallation desirable fair never panned out. Hoogstraten, whose mother is Javanese was the museum’s ability to go into the record of their creation and father is Dutch, has examined the history of the Java Village and find the stories of the individuals Hoffman sculpted, and in depth. He tells me that the Dutch sponsors of the village were also the story of Hoffman herself, who regarded her subjects as tea growers who had recently concocted a blend of tea they individuals and not simply as emblems of one race or another. hoped could take on the English products. In the turn-of-the-cen- tury U.S., where Japanese green teas were the most popular with Hoogstraten tells me that one of his dreams is to mount a farm families, they’d have to take on American-Japanese trading show of the museum’s collection from the Java Village and to houses, too. That tea competition, and more, was keenly present tell the story of the inhabitants. He is working to build a roster at the fair, where Japanese, Chinese, Indian, British and Dutch of them. “I want to know where exactly they all came from, East Indies teas were all promoted heavily, often in tea rooms whether what they did in Chicago was really what they did at designed in the styles of the countries of origin. In the Java Village, home. For those from the plantation, I want to know what life tea was served along with the performances in the tropical the- for them was like there. And the same for those who came from ater. Dutch-branded tea never took off in the United States. Nev- the sultan’s court.” ertheless, the Java Village succeeded as a paid attraction. Fol- lowing the 1893 fair, some residents of the village traveled west Naturally, I am keen on knowing all that, too. I fantasize about in the United States, perhaps on display as they went, eventually taking my photo collection of the Java Village back to the places ending up at San Francisco’s Midwinter Exposition of 1894, which in Indonesia where the villagers came from and learning what was likened to a smaller version of the Chicago fair. Cultural mem- stories have been passed down about those ancestors who made ory of it has largely vanished, with little trace of its influence in the journey to the Middle West, saw snow and turbines, ate ice the U.S., Indonesia or The Netherlands. cream and heard ragtime. One of the most endearing photos I have shows two Javanese girls hurrying down the Midway out- Down a long hallway in my home hang sepia portraits of some side the village gates after their shows have closed. There are of the village inhabitants. They stare sternly from their frames, accounts of how the “Ethnic Types” gathered later at night at the though accounts of them at the fair usually describe how friend- fair’s less prim attractions, and it looks to me like that might be ly, polite and gentle they were. Despite their grim poses, they where the girls were heading. That’s one kind of story I’d like in a are recognizable as people one might still meet in Java, wearing future exhibition. The participants were not “types,” or “zoo crea- the traditional clothes that many villagers still don. When Indo- tures.” Like everyone there, they were fairgoers. When the show nesians come to my home, the portraits startle them because with their story is up, I hope to cover it for Newcity. they are both so old and so familiar. My guests come with no knowledge of Chicago’s Java Village and the story surprises them, especially the bit about how wildly popular the attraction was. Indonesia, they tend to observe, had a bigger place in the Amer- ican imagination in 1893 than it does in 2021. They grimace a bit at the idea of their kinsmen being on display at a fair. (Jakarta has long had a theme park which had stations for many of Indone- sia’s ethnic groups, and which Indonesians mostly disdain.) And still, almost inevitably comes the suggestion that it would be wonderful to recreate the village with a modern frame, to “A House in the Javanese Village” from the Java Village at the World's Columbian Exposition,1893 Chicago. From the book “Midway Types: A Book of Illustrated Lessons About The People of the Midway Plaisance, World’s Fair 1893,” published by The American Engraving Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1894

Arts & Culture Western Exhibitions Drawing Biennial Works on paper fill both galleries in this group exhibition that celebrates their devotion to the medium. At Western Exhibitions through February 20 Edie Fake, \"The Upside Down Door,\" 2020, gouache and ink on paper, 9h x 12w in

Derrick Adams Pope.L, My Kingdom for a Title Jan 21–May 16 FEBRUARY 19–MARCH 27, 2021 Explore public sculptures, dynamic exhibitions, and engaging educational programs in Southwest Michigan. Richard Hunt’s sculpture Rising Crossing Tides welcomes you to the center. Learn more about KAC’s public sculpture collection at krasl.org. KRASL.ORG | ST. JOSEPH, MI

Art Candida Alvarez, \"Son So & So,\" 2001. Acrylic, pencil, flashe on Wood. Collection of DePaul Art Museum, gift of Chuck Thurow 2016.14 Changing Art History an ambitious group exhibition of nearly forty artists which aims to highlight and also DePaul Art Museum Cracks Open the Canon With Latinx Initiative complicate the identities and practices of Latin American artists. A majority of the artists are By Kerry Cardoza Chicago-based or previously linked to Chicago, a priority for DPAM, although their back- Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 In the spring and summer of 2020, museum’s programming and collections. grounds will not be presented on didactics as in most museum exhibitions. following the murder of George Floyd and the “That aspect of nationality we’re also protests that followed, art institutions around “So many of us are throwing around the problematizing with the show, in that normally with exhibitions like this, you would have the the world pledged solidarity with those who diversity, equity, access and inclusion artist's name, where they were born, and the year that they were born,” de Lara says. are fighting for Black lives, vowing to be better verbiage,\" says Laura-Caroline de Lara, interim “Nationalities for so many of these communi- ties are diverse, and are also a conversation at creating spaces that are inclusive and director of the museum, \"and for DPAM, for around what is American, what is not, how do we define those terms. So many of these equitable. Earlier that year, the DePaul Art the longest time, it’s been a key part of who Museum announced a plan to do that, through we are and what we do.\" a multiyear initiative aimed at fostering Latinx representation and participation in the The initiative continues with “LatinXAmerican,” 40

artists are living in between cultures that for the Americas. Across the the duration of the us it made sense to problematize that a little exhibition, Lozano will interview ten artists bit and diversify that conversation.” featured in “LatinXAmerican,” with episodes released on alternating Fridays. Public Spearheaded by former DPAM director and programming also includes free, virtual chief curator Julie Rodrigues Widholm, the workshops, lectures and conversations. Latinx initiative came out of conversations The public is able to view the show at home and research around the lack of representa- through the museum’s website, although tion of diverse populations in museum de Lara hopes the museum will reopen to collections. A 2019 study on the diversity of visitors in the spring or summer. And for artists in museum collections found that in eighteen major U.S. art museums, eighty- ve those passing through Lincoln Park, percent of artists were white and eighty-sev- “Quetzalli,” a site-speci c installation by ART TOP 5 en percent were male. Of all the artists in the Claudia Peña Salinas will be installed in the museum’s front windows starting February study, only 2.8 percent were Hispanic or 18. The installation focuses on the Aztec Latinx, almost all of whom were male (2.6 1 Western Exhibitions Drawing headdress “Penacho de Moctezuma,” which Biennial. Western Exhibitions. percent). DPAM is sensitive to gender Works on paper ll both galleries in was acquired by the Austrian geologist and this group exhibition that celebrates disparities as well, recently acquiring works Western Exhibitions' devotion to the explorer Ferdinand von Hochstetter in the late medium. Through February 20 by Maria Gaspar, Melissa Leandro, Nicole nineteenth century and is in the collection of 2 LatinXAmerican. DePaul Art Marroquín and Yvette Mayorga. Museum. This intergenerational the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna. Salinas group exhibition, featuring dozens of Chicago-af liated artists, explores The museum is also aware that not every artist highlights the repatriation dispute between and problematizes the identities Mexico and Austria in the work, which is a and oeuvres of Latinx artists. in the show identi es as Latinx, a term not Through August 15 introduced until the mid-2000s. Its usage as a composite image of the actual headdress gender-inclusive, non-binary pan-ethnic term and a replica at the National Museum of 3 Bisa Butler: Portraits. The Art Anthropology in Mexico City. Institute of Chicago. The rst to describe Americans with Latin American solo museum exhibition for this New Jersey artist showcases over twenty heritage has increased in the last several years. of her vibrantly patterned quilt But according to a 2020 Pew study, just three Salinas’ work points to another goal of DPAM’s portraits. Through April 19 Latinx initiative: heightening the sense of percent of U.S. adults who self-identify as 4 Collective Communities. belonging within the museum, both to the Weinberg/Newton. Presented Hispanic or Latino say they use Latinx to in collaboration with Earthjustice, this public at large and the DePaul community exhibition spotlights artist collectives describe themselves. working on environmental justice speci cally. Latinx people make up nearly thirty issues, including Deep Time Chicago. Through March 27 For Candida Alvarez, whose work “Son So & percent of Chicago's population and sixteen So” will be on view in “LatinXAmerican,” this is percent of DePaul University's enrollment, the 5 Kelly Kristin Jones. 062. her second show in recent months that uses exhibition website cites. “Museum spaces are The Chicago artist grapples the term Latinx. She’s also an integral part of often contentious spaces for a number of with public monuments, both people, they don’t always feel welcome in physically and mentally, asking hard “Estamos Bien: La Trienal,” El Museo del questions about what histories we them,” de Lara says. “One of the things that choose to elevate. Through March 5 Barrio’s rst national large-scale survey of Latinx contemporary art, which is named after we are working toward is being able to provide both a physical as well as a virtual space one of Alvarez’ works. where people feel like their voices are not only “When you say Latinx, you focus on the Latin heard but also really incorporated into the part but what about the other parts, the fabric of who we are as a museum.” indigenous parts, the Afro parts?” Alvarez At a time when a lack of action around asks. “The diaspora gets swallowed up.” diversity and inclusion at art institutions is Alvarez, who creates abstract paintings that apparent, DPAM’s endeavor to put their values are evocative of light and color and are akin to into practice is heartening. While the initiative stained glass, came up describing herself as is operating on a three-year timeline, de Lara stresses that the work won’t end there. Puertorriqueña. But she realizes that Latinx represents a new generation’s desire to identify “We wanted to make sure it wasn’t just an itself. “It’s complex,” she says. “It’s an attempt exhibition but that those conversations would at embracing a fullness that is much more than continue long after that,” she says. “Part of a FEBRUARY 2021 Newcity museum’s job is to really become a represen- what we look like on some level, because it really says I’m this political being. I’m going to tative of what our contemporary conversations are and should be, and part of the way to do name myself what I want.” that is to ensure that we are creating a space While DPAM will technically open “LatinXAm- for all types of voices and all types of communities.” erican” while the museum remains closed to the public, there is a virtual element. The museum has partnered with Ivan Lozano and \"LatinXAmerican\" is on view at the DePaul Art Museum, 935 West Fullerton, through Archives + Futures (A+F), a podcast for and August 15. about Latinx and Indigenous visual artists of 41

EXHIBITIONS THE ARTS CLUB OF CHICAGO GRAHAM FOUNDATION 201 East Ontario Street 4 W. Burton Place 312 787 3997 312 787 4071 [email protected] / www.artsclubchicago.org [email protected] / www.grahamfoundation.org Tues–Fri 10-1 | 2-6, Sat 11-3 Visit our website and follow us on social media @grahamfoundation (subject to change due to COVID-19) Artist-in-residence: Anna Martine Whitehead, FORCE! Viewing available online @artsclubchicago or www.artsclubchicago.org October 16–March 20 Upkeep: Elliott Jerome Brown, Jr., an opera in three acts Lenka Clayton, Sara Cwynar, Bronwyn Katz, GRAY Chancellor Maxwell, Lily van der Stokker Richard Gray Gallery, Hancock: 875 N. Michigan Avenue, 38th Floor THE BLOCK MUSEUM OF ART By appointment, Mon–Fri 10-5:30 Gray Warehouse, 2044 W. Carroll Avenue At Northwestern University By appointment, Tues–Fri 10-5, Sat 11-5 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, IL 312 642 8877 847 491 4000 [email protected] / www.richardgraygallery.com [email protected] / blockmuseum.northwestern.edu Please contact gallery for more information. Visit our website and follow us on social @nublockmuseum for online cinema, programs, tours, and resources for teaching and learning with art. KAVI GUPTA GALLERY Search our newly launched collection database of over 6,000 artworks. https://blockmuseum.emuseum.com/collections Kavi Gupta | Washington Blvd., 835 W. Washington Boulevard Kavi Gupta | Elizabeth St., 219 N. Elizabeth Street CARL HAMMER GALLERY By appointment only, email [email protected] to arrange 312 432 0708 740 N. Wells Street [email protected] / www.kavigupta.com 312 266 8512 Visit online at https://website-kavigupta.artlogic.net/ [email protected] / www.carlhammergallery.com Opening January 14 Michael Joo: Sensory Meridian (Elizabeth St.) Tues–Sat 11-5:30 (subject to change due to COVID-19) Opening January 22 Young-Il Ahn (Washington Blvd.) Please contact gallery for more information. Deborah Kass: Painting and Sculpture (Elizabeth St.) DEPAUL ART MUSEUM By appointment only, email [email protected] to arrange At DePaul University LOGAN CENTER EXHIBITIONS 935 W. Fullerton Avenue 773 325 7506 At the Reva and David Logan Center [email protected] / artmuseum.depaul.edu 915 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 Please contact DePaul Art Museum for more information. 773 702 2787 [email protected] / arts.uchicago.edu/logan/gallery Tues–Sat 9-9 (subject to change due to COVID-19) February 12–March 21 K. Kofi Moyo and FESTAC ‘77: The Activation of a Black Archive

MONIQUE MELOCHE GALLERY RHONA HOFFMAN GALLERY 451 N. Paulina Street 1711 W. Chicago Avenue 312 243 2129 312 455 1990 [email protected] / www.moniquemeloche.com [email protected] / www.rhoffmangallery.com Open by appointment, Tues–Sat 10-5 Tues–Fri 10:30-5:30, Sat 11-5 January 9–February 13 Ben Murray Please schedule an appointment through Tock: March 6–April 10 Maia Cruz Palileo exploretock.com/rhonahoffmangallery January 13–February 13 Brian Maguire: War Changes its Address MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY and Other Border Stories At Columbia College Chicago SMART MUSEUM OF ART 600 S. Michigan Avenue 312 663 5554 At the University of Chicago [email protected] / www.mocp.org 5550 S. Greenwood Avenue January 19–May 23 Reproductive: Health, Fertility, Agency 773 702 0200 [email protected] / smartmuseum.uchicago.edu THE NEUBAUER COLLEGIUM Please contact museum for current information and hours. FOR CULTURE AND SOCIETY WRIGHTWOOD 659 At the University of Chicago 5701 South Woodlawn Avenue 659 W. Wrightwood Avenue 773 795 2329 773 437 6601 [email protected] / neubauercollegium.uchicago.edu [email protected] / wrightwood659.org Open by appointment Please follow on social (@wrightwood659) for opening date January 21–May 16 Pope.L: My Kingdom for a Title of next exhibition. POETRY FOUNDATION 61 W. Superior Street 312 787 7070 [email protected] / poetryfoundation.org Check poetryfoundation.org/visit for updates on our current exhibition and hours.

Design 12 3 4 5 In Your Face Show Your Style with Locally Made Masks By Isa Giallorenzo Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 When face masks became a 1 — Agriculture along with silver, gold, bronze and requirement, even the largest stores Offering unisex masks in a variety of gun-metal hardware. She started out by couldn’t keep up with the demand. classic colors and prints, fashioned in mostly using materials found around the Independent designers popped up on luxury wools, soft cottons, silks and house. “The first twelve masks were Etsy and Instagram to meet it. Now blended fabrics, Milton Latrell and repurposed from my abuela’s leather that corner stores are packed with Christopher Brackenridge at Agriculture skirt. They are reminiscent of leather face masks, and box stores have no guarantee you’re covered in style while fetish wear found in BDSM.” shortage of multi-packs, independent turning their men’s apparel shop into a Shop via Instagram at @rubber_swan designers remain in the game. Why? lifestyle brand. Because they are making the stylish shopagriculture.com 4 — Jaja Do “What’s special about my masks is that ones. And style matters for an 2 — Afrocon Apparel I design then print the fabric from a accessory as prominent as a face “I use a variety of authentic African cloth factory in the UK that focuses on printing mask. As clothing designer Kylee fabrics, giving people a diverse cultural look fabrics sustainably. That means no harsh Alexander puts it, “Masks are going to while keeping them safe and fashionable,” chemicals or dyes that are harmful on be around for a while—and accepting says Afrocon Apparel’s Adebowale Sobitan, human skin or impact the environment,” them into one’s personal style can who creates face masks in vibrant colors says designer and healthcare worker definitely improve the outlook on and patterns for kids and adults, as well as Jaja. “My signature face mask—a floral personalized ones. “We are committed to pattern against a pale blue background— wearing one.” diversifying the culture.” is directly inspired by surgical masks afroconapparel.com universally used in the medical industry,” Local designers are creating masks she says. “It’s beautiful and has a calming that cover our faces, but still reveal a 3 — Aurorae Parker effect. I think people enjoy it because lot of flair. Their materials and prints Multimedia artist and performer Aurorae of that.” range from subtle to statement-mak- Parker makes masks with upcycled leather, jajado.info ing, delicate to hardcore—but one thing they have in common: they are all crafted in Chicago. 44

67 89 DESIGN TOP 5 5 — Kylee Alexander healthcare provider for every five face masks 1 CAC Live: Chicago’s Most FEBRUARY 2021 Newcity “My fashion line focuses on sustainability so she sells. Prints are rotated in limited editions. Endangered Buildings 2021. all of my masks are made from garment sophiareyes.com Chicago Architecture Center. remnants, which makes the fabric really Preservation Chicago’s annual personable. Beyond that, the process is 8 — SinClarity “Chicago 7” list identifies the city’s zero-waste—anything that doesn’t become “I started the mask adventure as I was getting most endangered buildings. a mask is turned into a quilt square,” says messages from friends on the frontlines. February 24, noon, Zoom, Free. designer Kylee Alexander. “I have a mask After working on donations and strictly for that matches all of my handmade clothing,” hospitals, I was able to donate around 1,000 2 Modern in the Middle: she says. “Masks are going to be around masks and face shields to frontline workers. Chicago Houses 1929-75. for a while.” The monotony of mass producing was The Monacelli Press. A book on the etsy.com/shop/KikibyKylee draining, so it has been a fun break to get classic modernist houses that creative designing fashion masks and defined American Midwestern 6 — Lilla Barn Clothing appreciate all those that have supported me,” modernism. Order online or watch “My masks are functional, comfortable, says designer Sarah Sands, who makes the book launch at the Farnsworth and make a visual statement,” says designer, one-of-a-kind masks with upcycled fabrics. House website. Bergen Anderson, who makes face masks “If you are feeling wild, or attending a protest, with adjustable, stretchy ties that can be I currently have a leather upcycled fringe 3 Virtual Annual February worn by adults and kids alike. “In my mask on the site that is a show-stopper.” Plant Sale. Garfield Park business, I focus on bright colors and bold MASHALLAH, 1840 South Halsted Conservatory. Ferns or terrariums, patterns. That has carried over to my aloe or Caribbean agave plants, the mask-making since I’m using fabric from 9 — Valerie Detwiler Conservatory helps you design your my collection. You’ll find masks for everyone “I studied fashion design in college and I always ideal garden on a budget. February including different colors, prints and gender feel better when I look good,” says the designer, 19, 10am-February 26, 7pm neutral options. Why not make a statement saying, “I try to buy fun, unique patterns that while wearing a mask?” people want to wear. Masks shouldn’t have 4 Wright Before the “Lloyd.” lillabarn.com to be basic.” They are made in one-hundred Elmhurst Art Museum. Last percent cotton fabric with elastic strings, nose chance to get to know Frank Lloyd 7 — Sophia Reyes wire and a filter pocket. Detwiler’s fiancé will Wright and his early work that “All masks feature three layers (one layer of deliver it to your door on his bike free of charge. shaped him into an architectural one-hundred percent cotton, one layer of “It feels really good to be putting my skills to legend. Through February 14 non-woven polypropylene, then another layer use during a pandemic. Making masks takes of one-hundred percent cotton lining) with a up a lot of time but it also provides me with 5 Renegade Craft. Online. pocket insert for a filter. The added nose wire a creative outlet that otherwise may be spent The Chicago-founded fair helps the face mask fit better,” says Reyes, learning how to make bread,” she says. shifts online to bring curated artist who donates one surgical cap to a frontline Shop via Instagram at @trashcatcreative goods to your door. 45

D&rDininkiinngg Nyonya Curry Laksa Lemak/Photo: Kapitan knew I would love it, and I did. I got the same tingle the first time I saw Otak-Otak, which I Migrant Mash-up had for the first time at a Singapore hawkers’ market a few years ago: a mixture of minced Peranakan Food Brings Cultures Together at Kapitan fish and spices, steamed in a pandan or banana leaf, very moist and flavorful, love at By David Hammond first bite. Otak-Otak is served at Kapitan in smaller portions, and we greatly enjoyed the Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 Peranakan food is found in Malaysia, Peranakan food for takeout or delivery. layers of flavor, with acidity coming from kaffir Singapore, Indonesia and other Southeast Starting from a base of Chinese ingredients lime, slight sweetness from coconut milk, Asian countries where Han Chinese have and preparations, Peranakan food has, over and the savory fish, all seasoned with chili, migrated over the centuries. These immi- time, been modified to suit the tastes of the turmeric, lemon grass and betel leaf. grants integrated with their newfound many regions where the Han Chinese settled. Ingredient availability is always a challenge communities, and Peranakan food represents with Peranakan food, and Kapitan owner a marriage of Chinese cuisine with the unique Sometimes you see a new food and just Victor Low says “The betel leaf was the foodways of the regions where these settlers want it, immediately. The first time I spotted hardest ingredient to find in Chicago, but we found home. couscous, it was the early seventies. I saw found what we needed at a Vietnamese this now-common-to-America food served market on Argyle.” Kapitan opened in Chicago in late December from steaming troughs at a French student 2020 at 2142 North Clybourn, and it’s serving cafeteria. Just looking at the couscous, I Murtabak is a contribution from the Peranakan who settled in Java. The Murtabak at Kapitan is flatbread topped with egg and beef, suitable for breakfast, lunch or dinner. All three daily meals are served at Kapitan, which offers its full menu all day. The Nyonya Curry Laksa Lemak was our favorite of the dishes we ordered. This soup contains fried tofu, shrimp, chicken, fish balls, hard-boiled egg and mushrooms in a coconut-milk-based broth spiked with chili paste. The cool creaminess of the soup is perked up with the chili heat, and sipping the soup makes different parts of the tongue come alive with the richness balanced by spice, and textural variation provided by the contrast of the crunchy crouton-like fried tofu cubes and the softer textures of the fish balls, egg and mushrooms. “In Malaysia,” Low says, “our Laksa Lemak is less spicy than other parts of Asia, and more creamy. The noodles are also a little different than rice vermicelli or egg noodles; they’re very close to spaghetti noodles, but not so starchy. They’re a little slippery, and they dissolve in your mouth.” The Hokkien Char Mee is a dish that eats like other noodle dishes you’ve had in Chinese restaurants: a bed of noodles topped with vegetables and protein. While it originated in China’s Fujian province, there are regional varieties from Penang, Singapore and Kuala Lampur. Kapitan offers the Kuala Lampur version and the noodles are thick and browned from braising in soy sauce. Hainan Chicken is on the menu, and it’s another good example of how a Chinese dish 46

DINING & DRINKING TOP 5 Hokkien Char Mee/Photo: Kapitan 1 Winter Beer & Cocktail Tasting Experience. Rizzo’s can be modified to suit the local population. brings people together, which is especially Bar & Inn. It’s the shortest month FEBRUARY 2021 Newcity We had our first taste of Hainan Chicken on important right now. [Low and I spoke the of the year, so you’ll have to work Hainan island, China, and when it was day after the assault on the United States harder to consume your monthly brought to our table, we thought there must Capitol.] The Peranakan people learned to requirement of alcohol. Rizzo’s in have been some mistake: the very white, get along with the people of different Wrigleyville is here to help. poached chicken was neatly sliced and countries, and that union of different types of February 5-27 beautifully presented with the skin removed, people is represented in the dishes. In but the chicken was surprisingly blood red at Peranakan food you see the harmony of 2 Cider Summit. You made the bone, something you don’t see often in cultures coming together.” your resolution to drink less the States. At Kapitan, the chicken skin is in 2021, and cider is a beverage “crispy golden brown,” and it’s cooked The variability of Peranakan food stymies that straddles the line between a through-and-through. This could be the way those who may seek out markers of healthful drink and straight-up it’s eaten in some Southeast Asian countries authenticity to confirm their judgement of a booze. Cider Summit offers a inhabited by the Peranakan, or it could be restaurant’s quality. Authenticity is always a chance to sample multiple renditions another modification to the cuisine demand- slippery standard, perhaps no more so than of fermented apple juice. February 6 ed by the local environment. Can you imagine with Peranakan food, which, by its nature, Chicagoans being fed bloody red chicken? transforms itself and mutates to match the 3 Valentine’s Weekend Me neither. This is not the Hainan chicken region where groups of Peranakan immi- Package. Geja’s. Generally served in Hainan, but as Low says, “There grants have settled. Perhaps more than any acclaimed as “Chicago’s most are many kinds of Hainan Chicken. other restaurant we’ve visited, Kapitan asks romantic restaurant,” Geja’s will you to suspend your need to assess serve you on their patio for “Peranakan food goes back to at least the authenticity and enjoy the food, accepting it Valentine’s Day. For $135/person, 1400s,\" Low continues, \"and it represents an as Malaysian Peranakan, Singaporean you get a sparkling wine and a intermarriage and intermingling of cultures; it Peranakan… Or even Chicago Peranakan. three-course feast, with cheese fondue to start and chocolate fondue to end, and steak, chicken or seafood for the entrée. February 12, 13, 14 4 Of cial Mardi Gras Bar Crawl. Multiple locations. This bar crawl offers socially distanced fun and lots of festive brews. February 20 5 National Malört Day. Dmen Tap. Dmen Tap will break open bottles of old-school Malört and serve up Malört-forward beverages and swag, to honor the spirit Chicagoans love to hate. February 21-22 47

Film Reeling Indie Years wasn’t so much hierarchical pecking order as one might think, you didn’t sit in Ebert’s Three Decades of Hopeful Watching seat in the back or Siskel’s off to the side of him. WGN’s Roy Leonard would find a genial By Ray Pride place ever-approximately in the middle. College critics from diverse backgrounds, Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 Before becoming Newcity‘s film critic in predecessor, movies on a busy week might young women and younger men, cycled late 1992, I had contributed freelance pieces screen at 10am, 12:15pm and 2:30. Letters through. to the then-alt-weekly, as well as the Reader would be sent, phone calls made, tins of film and other local folds and bursts of newsprint. would be messengered to the screening It was the last watering hole, in elephant I had freelanced since reviewing movies for room door, sometimes with fake names to terms, if not tippling terms, for legendary my college daily, and advance screenings keep potential pirates off the scent. If publicists like the late, calculating curmud- were both work and occasion, even in years producing movies is \"money into light,\" as geon Frank Casey of Warner Bros., whose before an assured weekly perch. In retro- filmmaker John Boorman put it, distribution plentiful grudges played out on his fingertips spect, the milieu could have been carted then was celluloid into tins. like a blind man in a brothel in a nine- whole from the 1940s or the 1950s. The teenth-century novel. elders were that old, particularly a generation Smelly pizza in styrofoam cartons. Gallons of of publicists. The waning took a long while. coffee parceled in cardboard. The same These were the true temples, ratty rooms in pre-screening jokes in ritual profusion. Triple side alleys or tucked inconspicuously inside I remember what I saw besides seeing the features with rapid exoduses and returns office towers yet with sound and image equal film, behind the scenes of the seen as much from the 7-Eleven on ground level. There was to the rooms on studio lots. The dark priests as thousands of movies since. At the Lake an ecosphere of publications and screening and priestesses gathered. (Or at least many Street screening room and its Erie Street rooms and secret screenings, and while there have seen themselves in that role.) New York City and Los Angeles have had their own 48

programming and screening-room culture A cinema provides the “bang-on affect”: tickets eagerly bought to “No Time To Die,” knew how to leverage. Reviewers were the forever-upcoming James Bond produc- shown brand-new prints, freshly struck and tion doesn’t mean just a recouped invest- run through the gate of few if any projectors. ment by Danjaq LLC, EON Productions inquired which screenings Siskel & Ebert theater owners and theater workers, it’s the FILM TOP 5 would attend, who then asked the studio to hardware stores that sell the lightbulbs and slip in one of the handful of prints struck from the vendors who sell paper towels and 1 Nomadland. Hulu, starting popping corn to the movie theaters. The Friday, February 19. The critical internegative from which hundreds of release projector beam does more than shine on consensus for Best Picture in the copies would be struck). Those were the the heart of storytellers; they’re even now extended 2020-2021 awards season optimum conditions; the couple that I’m often the heart of communities. sees light. aware of were bright and clear like a hallucination, at twenty-four frames-per-sec- And beyond reviews to write and read and 2 Judas & the Black Messiah. ond what Peter Jackson claimed for his the institutional memory of those within HBO Max, February 12-March sixty-frame-per-second “Hobbit.” (One of associated industries, what would be lost? 11. Ryan Coogler production of a these clandestinely privileged screenings led Conversations that never rose from throats gripping, incendiary telling of the to a major Chicago reviewer praising the to air: neither here, nor there. One of the murder in Chicago of Fred Hampton, great, recurring themes of Fran Lebowitz’s chairman of the Black Panther Party. Film programmers had their own tricks when long-running oral history of Fran Lebowitz, booking the 1970s Varsity, Sandburg and and Fran Lebowitz’s role in the history of New 3 Minari. Opens Friday, February Parkway theaters (Evanston, Division & York City is that of being not only a survivor 12. Gorgeous, moving story of Dearborn and Clark & Diversey, respectively) of the AIDS holocaust of 1980s New York, an all-American family coming of age and the 1980s Music Box, when they were in the rural heartland. booking double features on an often-daily witness. There were generations of writers basis. The best element I ever observed or and performers, composers and musicians 4 French Exit. Opens Friday, eavesdropped on was the cabal-level secret lost, but also the audiences, the warm, witty, February 12. Azazel Jacobs’ knowledge of every last single 35mm print in knowing presences and human memory, theatrical return after the future circulation, the reels that could be booked, the eyes and ears of group endeavor. rather than a take-or-leave-it single print, from Michelle Pfeiffer in epic form in a New a handful of urban depots around the country: Stories are still being fashioned and shared York- and Paris-set comedy with and streamed in the foreseeable future but errant spirits. ‘Rebel Without a Cause,' and reel two from in that format, in this moment, they are not Boston, I settled for the local reel four.” shared in physical space, cities old or new, 5 Malcolm & Marie. N downtowns of hamlets and burgs. Storytell- Streaming February 5. There were a lot of movies. There were a lot ing glows with promise. But community? Sam Levinson (“Euphoria”) directs of good movies when they were on 35mm The impulsive and whimsical and habitual Zendaya (“Euphoria”) and John things that bring us together, in a shared David Washington in a black- specialized ones, only recently just dubbed out-of-home, out-of-body experience? and-white chamber drama about “indies,” from 1992 through 9/11, in the time Where’s the love and the lore? a troubled relationship, shot during after the release of “sex, lies and videotape” the pandemic and acquired Within that notion of community bound by market was in a go-go era, including for commerce and shared experience and Comparisons to John Cassavetes Newcity advertising, particularly for a paper like shared space, there is the personal spark have been duly bandied. Newcity. An eleven-by-seventeen issue of we each can bring. Film festival programmer seventy-two or ninety-six pages of this and longtime friend and colleague Dimitri publication could have ten or twelve pages Eipides, who passed in January at the age of movie ads. including long sojourns with the Toronto Inter- After the suspension of business and fun after national Film Festival, and recently Reykjavik, 9/11, that era ended and never recovered. and especially his decades with and atop the The delicate business today is not the survival of media that might lavish glances on forms one of his many short, modest yet hortatory of audiovisual entertainment and occasional notes across the years, “Let’s do it together. art, but of the knife-edge economics of show- The times we’re living in demand it more than ing movies. Playhouses and movie theaters anchored neighborhoods, from earliest days idea excessive, I have no doubt that cinema and into the 1980s when Newcity came on can help: When you walk out of a movie, the scene. everything may be the same. But perhaps you’ve changed. Sometimes, that’s enough.” 49

Lit LIT TOP 5 Newcity FEBRUARY 2021 His reissuing three of those books, “King-Cat 1 Reuben Jonathan Miller. Struggle Classix,” “Map of My Heart” and “Perfect Seminary Co-op. The Example,” which collect the best of the first University of Chicago professor For thirty-one years and fifty issues of King-Cat into a matched set. discusses “Halfway Home: Race, counting, John Porcellino And this summer, Chicago’s Museum of Punishment, and the Afterlife of has crafted an ongoing Contemporary Art will include Porcellino’s Mass Incarceration,” in a virtual memoir in his King-Cat work, including a vitrine containing all of conversation with author and mini-comics the single issues of his zine, in its intended Princeton professor Matthew blockbuster show, “Chicago Comics: 1960 Desmond. February 2, 6pm By Brian Hieggelke to Now.” 2 Edward McClelland. Back in 1989, John Porcellino was a When we write about our lives, in correspon- The Book Cellar. The historian twenty-year-old art student at Northern dence or books, we tend to focus on the and journalist conducts a virtual Illinois University, living in the suburbs, playing supposedly landmark events. The day-to-day discussion of his book about the in rock bands, experimenting with zines. just doesn’t mean enough. In comics, though, strike of 1936-1937 that gave Inspired by Julie Doucet’s “Dirty Plotte,” the mundane is everything. Those are the birth to the United Auto Workers, he decided to start his own comics-based real moments—the small or not-so-small “Midnight in Vehicle City: General zine, “one that would be a totally personal waves of emotion, the short encounters with Motors, Flint, and the Strike that statement from me to the world,” he’d later friends and strangers that ultimately make Created the Middle Class.” write. King-Cat Comics and Stories was born. up the bulk of a lifetime. This is the stuff of February 5, 7pm Porcellino's work. In late 2020, he published the eightieth issue, 3 Antonio Johnson. basically still in its original format—thirty- In its total, Porcellino’s “memoir” is vast; Chicago Public Library. two-to-forty-eight pages of black-and-white these three books alone total 876 pages. The photographer discusses hMisichele Morano drawings on digest-sized copier paper. And in seeing how he finds simple grace book “You Next: Refl/ePchottioo:nJsoeiMnazza/Brave Lux He’s now fifty-two years old and over those and beauty in the everyday of his life, I kept Black Barbershops” in a virtual thirty-odd years, his work steadily earned thinking about Karl Ove Knausgaard’s conversation with multimedia acclaim, winning awards and compiled into 3600-page “novel,” “My Struggle,” in its artist Chris Saint Martin. books. This month, Drawn & Quarterly is concerns, scope and accomplishment. February 17, 3pm Porcellino’s is mostly an “unexceptional” life, of dead-end suburban jobs, failed 4 Palabra Pura Fifteenth marriages, health problems. Yet his work Anniversary Celebration. illuminates the greatness of all humanity, for Poetry Foundation. Mary Hawley in his own existence, he finds beauty in his moderates a virtual celebration of the bilingual reading series, with Francisco Aragón, Brenda Cárdenas, Miguel Marzana and Johanny Vázquez Paz. February 17, 7pm 5 Julia Fine. Women & Children First. The Chicago writer will discuss her second novel, “The Upstairs House,” in a virtual conversation with Rebecca Makkai. February 24, 7pm 50