Newcity Chicago November 2017

myself all these years later. I then put Since leaving Chicago, I’ve had a full life. and sweatshirts—God Almighty, howChicago in the rearview mirror, but not Married, married again, and now with a this city loves the Big Ten. The placereally. I come back two or three times a son. I became a writer. As I scraped and stunk of Old Style—or I hope it was Oldyear. The experience is different; gone is scrambled to make a living in Style—and yes there were obnoxiousmy Rogers Park hovel where the spare magazines, I came across friends and drunks, but there was a genuine honestyroom was filled with my roomie’s grow frenemies who came from Ivy League to their recently discovered alcoholism,lights and crops. Now, I stay at a friend’s colleges and boarding schools who just something I never see in New York orplace on Lake Shore Drive, one of the expected doors to open for them. Los Angeles, where you’re likely to see ahigh-rises I stared at goggle-eyed on my Coming from Chicago, I was too twenty-five-year-old Lithuanian modelway to Loyola in August of 1992. I can sit headstrong and too Midwest to know clutching her Brooks Brother-cladfor hours on the balcony, watching the there were doors at all. I just plowed sixty-year-old benefactor or someskyscrapers’ shadows fall on the green ahead, didn’t think about it in cosmic douchebag proclaiming “I crushed it,”lake and the lights of the Drake and the terms, and just did the work. That was never specifying what he crushed.Centennial Wheel light up in the sunset. my Chicago Way. These sons and daughters of Chicago buzzed with a sincerity that I didn’t wantBut I never feel like a stranger. Some When I came back to town about two them to ever let go. The early hoursthings never change. The anchor of an years ago, I was working on a story for passed and everyone got giddy. I feltimperial mayoralty remains, its weight The New Yorker, my first, on a comedy warm and it wasn’t just the vodka.slowly pulling the city below the casting agent. She’d come to town on awaterline. I’d dip into town and things scouting trip and we hit Second City and I was home.would have been done: Meigs Field dug a half-dozen clubs. We ate at Gibsonsup in the middle of the night; Soldier and I felt like a tourist. But, late one BEST OF CHICAGO — NOVEMBER 2017 NewcityField desecrated; the city’s parking night, we adjourned to a bar on Wellsrevenue sold out for a song; Rahm after the last show. The bar was filledEmanuel constantly mistaking his office with men and women in Big Ten capsfor that of a pharaoh. Michael Madiganstill wielding power. Violence on theSouth Side. Mel Reynolds runningfor office. Mel Reynolds gettingarrested again. 51

BEST CO-OP GROCERY EXPANSION experience beyond shopping. Walking NEWCITY 2017 into the carefully curated shop, you feel BEST OF CHICAGO The Dill Pickle Co-Op as if you’ve entered a museum of collectible and usable art. Negative Given painstaking months of a grueling space becomes just as important as fundraising campaign, the Dill Pickle the objects that occupy each end of Co-Op s finally open at its new and it. Jean Marie Cate and her Cavalier expanded location. Never mind that the King Charles Spaniel (and shop store manager is Newcity dance editor namesake) Martha Mae run the Sharon Hoyer, the accomplishment is shop together. The placement of considerable by any standard. it’s worth each and every item is exact, and the recognizing that the community-owned arrangements themselves warrant a model can work. It not only works, but museum wing. The only difference works well enough to drive a multi- between a museum and Martha Mae’s million-dollar extension into the shop is that here you are encouraged to community, allowing the Dill Pickle to touch the objects in an atmosphere that serve an even larger share of its is at once refined and welcoming. neighbors. 5407 N. Clark, 872.806.0988, 2746 N. Milwaukee, 773.252.COOP, marthamae.info dillpickle.coopNewcity NOVEMVER 2017 — BEST OF CHICAGO BEST TURNKEY HANDOVER OF AN BEST STORE MOST LIKELY TO HAVE BEST WAY TO HAVE A VINTAGE ADVENTURE ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD RECORD STORE TMOIPLPLELNEDNIOAULTMOAFGAAZPIHNOETO SPREAD IN A Lost Girls Vintage When Permanent Records Became Joyride Records Bow & Arrow Collection Lost Girls Vintage is Sarah Azzouzi and On the afternoon of the partial eclipse, Opened by three sisters, Danielle G Kyla Embrey—and Winnie, their 1976 Lance Barresi and Liz Tooley were in Lenczuk, Nicole Galanti and Casey handpainted camper van that started it from Los Angeles, standing in front of Galanti, Bow & Arrow Collection is a gift all. True to the Peter Pan reference they Permanent Records, the Chicago Avenue store that aims to inspire everyday and were named after, they see fashion as a storefront they opened in October 2006 special experiences through curated never-ending adventure: From in-town and which spawned their three thriving products that are thoughtfully chosen to pop-ups to cruising with style across the L.A. outposts. There were complications, celebrate life’s smallest and biggest country, and from a mobile vintage store, they recounted, as the sky grew silver- moments. Its open floor plan and to a brick-and-mortar home in Bucktown. gray. But a couple of weeks later, millennial pink aesthetic are what make Handpicking every piece in their paperwork was done, and after a long this gift store a high-trend, Instagram- collection, Lost Girls Vintage is more weekend for Barresi and Tooley clearing worthy destination. than just a vintage clothing business, out CDs and choice posters and product 1815 N. Milwaukee, 773.661.1915, it’s a way of life. A pretty colorful for their stores on the coast, the pair bowandarrowcollection.com (and in Winnie’s case, bright orange,) turned their enterprise over to Jesa and stylish, fun one. Rosemary Espinoza, longtime BEST STOGIE STORE lostgirlsvintage.com Chicagoans and “total record heads with strong connections to the local music Up Down Cigar BEST SPA TREATMENT FOR scene!” as Barresi enthused on CAFFEINE ADDICTS Instagram. The Espinozas, who repainted Cigarette smokers might be pathetic the space a cool black, opened at the things, huddling outside their places of LondonHouse Spa end of September, planning to augment employment, hurriedly hot-boxing their the stock customers have come to smokes, facing down the accusatory Relaxation and caffeine rarely go hand in expect with other tasty genres in stares of judgmental passersby. But cigar hand, but the spa at LondonHouse vinyl, including a range of Mexican smokers, on the other hand, are the Chicago has a treatment custom built for psychedelic music. picture of First World bravado, strutting the constantly buzzed. Their Espresso 1914 W. Chicago, 773.278.1744 down the street, blowing smoke like the Scrub, Rub & Chug service begins with a 20th Century Limited chugging into full-body scrub made from coffee beans, BEST RETAIL/ART THERAPY STORE Union Station. And where do many of honey and oils, followed by an Chicago’s cigar aficionados acquire their individually tailored massage. With Martha Mae: Art Supplies & Beautiful Things smokes? Up Down Cigar, of course. This muscles relaxed and skin rejuvenated, old place has been going strong for the treatment ends with a shot of Storefront shops and studios offering a almost a half-century, and they have over espresso to get you back up to speed. selection of “art, art supplies and sixty major brands of cigars, as well as Latte lovers and coffee connoisseurs, beautiful things” in Chicago are in the largest collection of handmade briar this is for you. abundance, to make a large pipes in the world. LondonHouse, 85 E. Wacker, understatement, but Martha Mae: Art 1550 N. Wells, 312.337.8025, 312.357.1200, londonhousechicago.com Supplies & Beautiful Things in updowncigar.com Andersonville is able to offer an52

BAEFSLTIGAHPTPPWATHHILE IDLING UNDER BEST MAN FOR A CUSTOM BLADE Best of Chicago BEST OF CHICAGO — NOVEMBER 2017 Newcity 1993 from theFlightradar24 Chad Sorlie, Cowboy Custom Knives 2017 LensAny sunny spring or summer afternoon in Sometimes you need a knife to get the 1993 GOODSthe neighborhoods that reside under the job done, and other times you need an & SERVICESMidway or O’Hare flight paths, such as excuse to show off your beautiful blade.Wrigleyville, just below Ukrainian Village, Pilsen-based Chad Sorlie carries on the Talk about a time capsule ofor central Logan Square, planes lazily time-honored craft of knife-making, changes. Some of thesegraze the clouds above. Where are they blending classic craft with contemporary concerns, like Paper Source,headed? How many passengers do they custom looks. Spearpoint, drop-point, grew from a single mom &have? Wonder no more, plane-spotters, boot knife, wooden handle, leather pop location into mightyeven if you’re not into the minutia of shealth—you name it, Sorlie does it all chains. Others, seeminglywingspan and fuselage: Flightradar24 is made to order. Follow him on Instagram, mighty chains, vanished in thethe cleanest design of any app that will where he shows off recent builds: @ wake of the digital-drivenslake aimless curiosity for at least a few chadsorlie. retail revolution.bursts of endorphins. cowboycustomknives.com Best Record Store:BEST NEW CAFE NOTION BY A WHISKER BEST AMERICAN-MADE DENIM Tower Records Going to Tower Records usedThe Windy Kitty Cat cafe Dearborn Denim & Apparel to be a form of entertainment in itself, something to do on aSet, finally, to open right before WIth Japanese selvedge beyond most Friday if you did not want toHalloween, the city’s latest cat cafe, “a Chicagoans’ price point, a durable, stylish go to the movies. “Theplace to bring community and fuzzy pair of everyday jeans is important to find. generous hours (till midnightfelines together,” located in Bucktown, Rob McMillan, former Chicago bond every day of the year,will offer local coffee, local baked goods trader, quit his day job to found Dearborn including national holidays)and wi-fi while sharing the space with Denim, a line of simple, classic jeans for make Tower truly a secularadoptable cats from Roscoe Village’s men and women. With a factory in temple of infotainment, aAlive Rescue. An online fundraising Garfield Park and storefront in Hyde Park, haven for souls seekingcampaign raised almost $6,500 toward the six-point star on their signature ritualized comfort—andthe launch. “A cat cafe will ensure the leather back patch is a much better way redemption, completion—cats are able to avoid being in a shelter, to show your Chicago pride than a tattoo amidst racks and shelves ofroaming free, playing and socializing with in the same spot. cultural artifacts.”the rad people of Chicago,” the backers 1504 E. 53rd, 872.465.3188,wrote on their Indiegogo pitch. dearborndenim.us Best Sporting-Goods Store:1746 W. North, windykittychicago.com Morrie Mages BEST HEAD SHOP This place was trulyBEST EMERGENCY BUTTON STORE magnificent, even if you wereIN THE LOOP Ash’s Bucktown Smoke Shop not sports-obsessed. We wrote then: “They actuallyChicago Fabric Yarn & Button Sales Whether you just need papers or screens, call it MC Sporting Goods now, one-hitters or extravagant bongs, Ash’s a nod to the facelessIf your shirt pops a button, duck into Bucktown Smoke Shop offers a very corporate parent thatChicago Fabric Yarn & Button Sales for a good selection of paraphernalia in a wide acquired Chicago’s sportingrapid replacement. Concealed under the price range. The people behind the goods legend when itsEl tracks near Adams, this maze of a counter are never noticeably high (unlike founder passed away a fewstore is crammed to the ceiling with those who work at some dispensaries in years ago. Fortunately, thesewing notions and fabric bolts. Along rec-weed states of Washington and only thing they wrecked atwith buttons, thread and zippers, Colorado, tsk, tsk), and they have a good the flagship store is theChicago Fabric stocks fake fur, lace, working knowledge of their product lines. name—Mages still offers anliturgical fabric, African bark cloth and Open until 4am on Sunday mornings, extraordinary eight floors ofeven cotton printed with President which can be a life-saver. sporting goods (the eightObama’s likeness. 1573 N. Milwaukee, 773.384.9180 wonders of Wells Street), from208 S. Wabash, 312.322.9094, scuba to volleyball supplies, infabricschicago.com a store that still reflects very much the imprint of its up-from-Maxwell Street founder.” 53

Best of Chicago UBENSDTEBRONUEATITQHUIETBARLLAND TO FEEL GOOD LBEESSSTOLNEASRWNI-TTHO-AFIVSIHEW 1993 from the 2017 Lens Underground Undies Northerly Island Fieldhouse 1993 GOODS Starting as a lingerie blog and a place to Chicago Park District offers fishing & SERVICES show off custom work he made for his workshops at Northerly Island Park, now-ex-girlfriend, the mysterious man providing fishing equipment, bait and Best Women’s Shoe Store: behind @underground_undies soon spectacular views of boats and skyline. If Lori’s Shoes found himself flooded with custom you tire of fishing, take a walk or cycle Best Record Store: commissions from friends and followers. around the peninsula path, which Tower Records Underground Undies, a handmade brand meanders through savannah, prairie and Best Place to Get All of men and women’s underwear, remains wetland habitats. Meadow larks, warblers Wrapped Up: Paper Source a small, covert operation to this day, and shorebirds take you away from the Best Bookstore Decor: befitting the beautiful work they stitch. city. Bookman’s Alley underground.undies@gmail, Instagram: 1521 S. Linn White, 312.745.2910 Best Toy Store for Kids: @underground_undies (Fieldhouse) F.A.O. Schwarz Best Toy Store for Adults: BEST NEWISH BOOKSTORE BOEFSYTOPULRACTAESTTOEBTAUKDESCARE Uncle Fun AND YOUR BODY Best Place to Buy Cowboy Pilsen Community Books Boots: Alcala’s Mojo Spa Best Mustard Selection: What sets this space apart is how Treasure Island apparent it is that the stock has been Mojo Spa is home to soap in the shape of Best Place to curated with care. You’ll find new, used cupcakes, cookies and cake slices, Buy Parts of Old Buildings: and vintage books, as well as stationery, candles inside martini glasses and a Salvage One and even the odd typewriter in this handmade cosmetic line of over 200 Best Thrift/Vintage Store: welcoming little store. It’s difficult to ingenious products inspired by comfort Urban X leave empty-handed. Every bookmark foods and treats that all smell so good Best Women’s Boutique teaches you a new word as well. you just want to eat them. Amanda Concentrating on Chicago 1102 W. 18th Street, Kezios makes sure of that—she’s called Designers: Pentimento pilsencommunitybooks.org the Willy Wonka of Beauty for a reason. Best Metaphysical Designed in bright pink and decorated Bookstore: The Occult BEST VOUCHER PROGRAM with glitter and paper-mâché flowers, the Bookstore FOR LOCAL SCHOOL AND space not only offers one of the most Best Sporting-Goods Store: REFUGEE PROGRAMS meticulously detailed mani-pedis in the Morrie Mages city, but you get to sit on princess-throne Best Bookstore: Family Tree Resale chairs while you‘re at it. What’s the latest Seminary Cooperative from the Mojo kitchen? A zesty pumpkin- Bookstore It would have been easy to rank the little pie face-body scrub and lotion, and a Best Used Record Store: Lincoln Square resale shop Family Tree pumpkin-pie soap that is actually a Reckless Records as the best thrift shop in Chicago, with its life-size pie. ‘Tis the season! Best ‘Zine: clean, well-chosen selection of the usual 1468 N. Milwaukee, 773.235.6656, The Baffler clothing, shoes and electronics that mojospa.com Best Department Store: families needing to make ends require. Marshall Field’s at State Newcity NOVEMVER 2017 — BEST OF CHICAGO But, similar to the mission of other Street resellers such as Brown Elephant, which Best Video Store: donates portions of its proceeds to the Facets Video at support of the Howard Brown Health Booksellers Row Center, Family Tree has gone the extra Best Wine Shop: step to establish a voucher program for Sam’s Wine & Liquors underprivileged local school kids and Best Place to Buy Authentic refugee families. When poverty is too African Garb: often treated as a moral failing, and New Boutique Africa human beings displaced by war and54 strife are branded and refused as “illegals,” it returns a tiny bit of warmth to the world that a little North Side storefront would take it upon itself to try just a little bit harder to help out. 5066 N Lincoln, 312.918.9260, familytreeresale.com

\"We Are Here\" at the Museum Of Contemporary Art.The MCA celebrates fifty years of bringing contemporary art to Chicago. JeffrKoons,Rabbit,t1986s©JeffKoons.Photo:Nathan&Keay© MCAChicagoCulture

Logan Center Gallery • Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts • 915 E 60th St Chicago IL 60637 BROWN PEOPLE November 10 ARE THE arts.uchicago.edu/logan/gallery NOV 18, 2017–JAN 28, 2018 WRENS IN THE ALEJANDRO PARKING LOT CESARCO Opening Reception & Town Hall SONG — January 7 THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY November 10, 6pm at the University of Chicago 5811 South Ellis Avenue Cobb Hall, 4th Floor 773 702 8670 Chicago, Illinois 60637 [email protected] renaissancesociety.orgEXAMINE THE RADICAL POTENTIAL Admission is always free.OF THE EVERYDAY AT THE SMART All are welcome. Revolution Every Day through January 14, 2018 lya PavlovichMakarychev, Every Cook Must Learn to Govern the State.—Lenin, 1925, Lithograph on paper, Ne boltai! Collection. Emmanuel Pratt Radical [Re]Constructions through Spring 2018 Emmanuel Pratt, installation view of Radical Jayna Zweiman [Re]Constructions, 2017. Welcome Blanket through December 17, 2017 Smart Museum of Art | The University of Chicago 5550 S. Greenwood Avenue | Chicago, IL 60637 smartmuseum.uchicago.edu

Just In Time ArtApichatpong Weerasethakul’sTriumphant Return to ChicagoBy Elliot J. ReichertApichatpong Weerasethakul, \"Mr. Electrico (For Ray Bradbury),\"2014, lightbox, inkjet print on DuratransI will be the first to admit that I cannot stand video art. That is, projected at eye-level from small tripods, clung to the walls, pacingI literally cannot stand in front of it for long enough to appreciate the anxiously. In front of them, a floor-to-ceiling projection showed a manbeauty of its images or the complexity of its narratives. I know that I am sitting in front of a microphone, out-of-focus musicians perched behind him as the lights of a disco ball streamed slowly over his face.not the only art lover who, when confronted by a work of time-basedmedia in an exhibition, will spend the shortest allowable moment in front As he sang to the slow notes of a lounge song, subtitles told the poetic tale of a person lost in his own time, wondering if he will haveof it in order to appear politely contemplative before moving on to the the wherewithal to remember himself in the future. “Will I rememberclosest painting, photo or whatever else is solid at which I can fix mygaze. If I’m writing about a show with video, I’ll always request a link to freedom?” he asks with melancholic resignation.a screener from the gallery that I can watch on my own time and manip-ulate with the controls that have become naturalized in our post-VCR This moment, like many others in the show ahead of me, produced a kind of contradiction that I rarely allow myself to encounter with videosociety—pause, rewind, fast-forward, stop. work. At once sculptural and narrative, spatial and temporal, theIn part, I lay blame on the homogenization of the moving image by juxtaposition of these works produce the palpable tensions thatits mainstream forms—movies, music videos, even Snapchat— animate so much of today’s compelling sculpture and painting. Spacewhere stories are blunt, action always extreme, and everything that’s and scale are not incidental in Weerasethakul’s installations, they aregood is also short. Given our ever-increasing hours of daily screen essential. In this retrospective, each room is a lesson in looking, withcontact, the ironic fate of human attention is that it has been difference a matter of form, not degree. The videos stand on their owndiminished to a point where fifteen seconds is enough of any one while bearing the considerations of collective force.image. A Warhol quote comes to mind here, but for a lack of focus, \"Haiku,\" \"Windows,\" \"Bullet\"—a list of titles becomes poetry itself. NOVEMBER 2017 NewcityI simply cannot recall it. Young men lying on the floor in a haze of bright red appear as victimsIf I was reluctant to enter Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s retrospective of some unspeakable crime. In fact, they are teenagers sleeping in“The Serenity of Madness” at the School of the Art Institute of an improvised shelter filmed by Weerasethakul while making anotherChicago’s Sullivan Galleries, it was with full awareness that the show work. “Bullet,” the artist’s first film, from more than two decades ago,boasts more than twenty video works spanning the career-so-far of plays with the materiality of celluloid as illegible characters streamthis artist, filmmaker and alumnus of the school. Apparently, the over the screen, scratched and splotchy. I have to wonder if, while atexhibition was wary of me too. Upon entering the darkened space of SAIC, Weerasethakul was shown work by Isidore Isou, the Romanianthe show’s first room, I was confronted by a menacing guard dog. Jewish poet and film critic, whose 1951 \"Traité de Bave et d’éternité\"Turning back to face the entrance, I spotted three more lurking in the depicts the artist scratching film stock as the selfsame gashesshadowy corner. Altogether four fiery-red canine silhouettes, appear over his moving image. “Windows,” shot by Weerasethakul 57

ve years after \"Bullet,\" is equally abstract, but here the artist has Apichatpong Weerasethakul, \"Sakada (Rousseau),\" 2012, still from video. turned his attention from the surface of lm to the ephemerality of light. Projected through a sheet of holographically treated plexiglass of one artwork is projected next to another in the warm wash of that is suspended mid-air, the effect of light streaming through a 35mm slides and to the hum of an overworked fan. window is uncannily repeated in the image and its presentation. In his sweeping book-length essay “In Praise of Shadows,” the Throughout his work, Weerasethakul xates on the alchemy of lm— Japanese author Junichiro Tanizaki tells of the interplay of candlelight that combination of image, light and movement that, once combined, on the gold-veined surfaces of ne lacquerware, writing that it “is not becomes greater than the sum of its parts. In these works, video is something to be seen in a brilliant light, to be taken in at a single not a means to an end, it is an aesthetic medium in a true sense, glance; it should be left in the dark, a part here and a part there carrying the qualities of images along with their possible meanings. In picked up by a faint light.” Much else could be said about Apichat- “Phantoms of Nabua,” a gauzy screen shows ashes of lightning—per- pong Weerasethakul’s gallery work, let alone his feature lms, several haps reworks—in the middle of a park at night. In front of the screen of which will be screened at SAIC throughout the run of this appear a group of teenagers, illuminated in partial silhouette by a exhibition. The fraught politics of Southeast Asia, the queerness of burning ball at their feet. As they kick it ever more powerfully between everyday life, the intimacy of darkness—for these I will have to return, them, it roars like a comet and streaks trails of light and ember across time and again, to keep looking. the grass. When one kicks the aming ball at the screen as if to score a goal, the fabric begins to burn. In a few minutes, only its frame is left “Apichatpong Weerasethakul: The Serenity of Madness” shows and we are left staring directly into the glowing lens of the projector through December 8 at the Sullivan Galleries of the School of the Art behind it. Eerily, one senses that one is being looked at from within Institute of Chicago, 33 South State. the screen. At times, his method is too rigid, as in “Ashes,” a video diary shot with the LomoKino camera, a novel device that uses average 35mm lm rolls to produce homemade shorts. The clicking of the hand- cranked camera, reproduced as a sound effect in the work’s audio track, cheapens the magic of Weerasethakul’s vision like an overpowering lter on Instagram. Conversely, the ampli ed shutters that occasionally block one or both throws of a two-channel projection called “Invisibility” work to the opposite effect, enhancing the fundamentally manual qualities of a medium that, more than any other of our time, has been transformed radically in its leap from analog to digital. Looking at these shadows play across the long walls of the gallery, the art historian in me cannot help but feel nostalgia for the days of slide-comparison lectures in which an imageNewcity NOVEMBER 2017 mocp.org Photo: Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst, Relationship #23 (The Longest Day of the Year), 2011 58

The Arts Together through Mar 11Join us on Northwestern University’sEvanston campus, your destination William Blake andfor world-class performances and the Age of Aquariusexhibits. For a schedule of events, visit Art Exhibition Block Museumartscircle.northwestern.edu NovIMAGE CREDITS: (Top left) William Blake, frontispiece 3–19for Europe, a prophecy, 1794. The Rosenbach, Philadelphia.(Right) Graphic design by Joel Solari. (Bottom left) CompanyWonge Bergmann. Theatre Barber Theater Nov 15–16 Music of Steve Reich Music and Guest Appearance Pick-Staiger Concert Hall L to R: by Beverly Mayeri, by John Cederquist, by Kim Cridler, Racine Art MuseumVisit America’s Largest Contemporary Craft CollectionLearn more about Racine Art Museum exhibitions and events at ramart.orgSeptember 17 – December 30 75 at 75: Significant Works from RAM’s Collection NOVEMBER 2017 Newcity Paul Smith: Masters of CraftThrough January 21, 2018 Variations on a Theme: Vessels from RAM’s CollectionThrough July 22, 2018 Unpacking Karen Johnson Boyd’s Clay Collection at RAMRacine Art Museum Racine, Wisconsin 262.638.8300 ramart.org 59

Anne Collier, \"Untitled (Light Years, Douglas Kirkland),\" 2009 ART TOP 5 Presented by: Platinum Sponsor: 1 We Are Here. Museum of Contemporary Art. The MCA celebrates fty years of bringing contemporary art to Chicago with a team-curated show from its extensive collections. 2 Apichatpong Weerasethakul. SAIC Sullivan Galleries. Gorgeous videos by the Thai artist and lmmaker ll cavernous galleries. 3 David Schutter. Rhona Hoffman Gallery. Gray-washed surfaces belie Schutter's deep and abiding studies of the history of painting.Newcity NOVEMBER 2017 4 Tom Burtonwood and Thad Kellstadt. Demo Project. Slated for demolition, this small house in Spring eld hosts a temporary exhibition space led by artists af liated with the University of Illinois Spring eld. 5 A Is For Artist. Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. Works by artists with neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders showcase the creative energies of us all.60

NJTaheacDotahbrkaIHsnn’aitesThhleiMmThionagtroTyo WQorruy AinbonutNOocttohbeirn2g7’s- DFeucnemnbyer 9, 2017Artist reception: October 27, 5 - 7:30pmJDaamvidesScWhuintteesrANrigchht-AWrto:rAk Conduit for Context,dOrcatowbeirn2g1s- fDoerceSmIbTeEr 9, 2017Artist reception: November 11, 2 - 5pmIn conjunction with Gallery Weekend ChicagoTHROUGH OCTOBER 21, 2017 THECLA m o n g e r s o n g a l l e r y. c o m118 NORTH PEORIA STREETCHICAGO ILLINOIS 60607WWW. R HOF F MAN G A L L E RY.C O MCHICAGO 2017PRINTERSGUILDFeaturing 30+ Artists Jay Ryan Saturday, “A collage of witty,and Publishers: November 11th wild and wondrous Jeremy Blake Opening Night Party moments. The cast Alexandra Blom Jess DePaul is stunning.” Alison Filley Joseph Lappie 6pm – 12pm Culturebot Anna Hasseltine Justin Santora $8 Ben Chlapek Katie Chung Cynthia Oliver Co. Bert Green Luke Drozd Featured Speakers: COCo. Dance Theatre Bobby Sims Matthew Bozik Luke Drozd Caitlin Jayes Michael Jensen Virago-Man Dem Carrie Lingscheit Michelle McCoy Tanner Woodford November 2, 3, and 4, 2017 at 7:30 p.m. Colette Lehman Nadine Nakanishi Cristal Tucker Nick Butcher Sunday, Tickets $30 Regular / $24 Seniors Dan Black Rachelle Hill November 12th $10 Columbia College Chicago students Daniel Luedtke Raeleen Kao Publishers Fair Dan Grzeca Ryan Duggan colum.edu/dancecenterpresents Deborah Maris Lader Susannah Hera 10am – 6pm Emma Bilyeu Tabor Shiles Free Farrah Blake Troy Lehman Vida Sacic Elastic Arts 3429 W Diversey Ave. Chicago, IL 60647Sponsors:Additional Support:Lumpen Radio Chicago Design Museum Baker Prints SonnenzimmerCHICAGOPRINTERSGUILD.ORG/FAIR

EXHIBITIONSANDREW BAE GALLERY LINDA WARREN PROJECTS300 W. Superior Street 327 N. Aberdeen, Ste. 151312 335 8601 312 432 [email protected] / www.andrewbaegallery.com [email protected] / www.lindawarrenprojects.comTues-Sat 10-6 Tues–Sat 11-5 or by private appointmentNovember 3–December 16 Leeah Joo: Knots and Loose Ends September 9–November 4 Gallery X & Y - Chris Silva September 9–November 4 Gallery O - “Go Figure” - LorettaBLOCK MUSEUM OF ART Bourque, Megan Euker, Lora Fosberg, Paula Henderson,At Northwestern University Michiko Itatani, Judith Mullen, and Jennifer Presant40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, IL November 11–January 13 Gallery X & Y - Peter Drake: Re-picture847 291 4000 November 11–January 13 Gallery O - Loretta Bourque: [email protected] / www.blockmuseum.northwestern.eduTues, Sat–Sun 10-5, Wed–Fri 10-8, Mon closed LOGAN CENTER EXHIBITIONSSeptember 12–December 10 Carrie Mae Weems: Ritual and RevolutionSeptember 23–December 10 “Looking Life Right Straight in the Face:” At the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts 915 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 The Art of Purvis Young 773 702 2787September 23–March 11, 2018 William Blake and The Age of Aquarius [email protected] / www.arts.uchicago.edu Tues–Sat 9-9, Sun 11-9, Mon closedCARL HAMMER GALLERY November 10–January 7, 2018 Brown People Are the Wrens740 N. Wells Street in the Parking Lot312 266 [email protected] / www.carlhammergallery.com MONIQUE MELOCHE GALLERYTues–Fri 11-6, Sat 11-5November 3–December 30 Twists and Turns: New Sculptures 2154 W. Division Street 773 252 0299 by Neil Goodman [email protected] / www.moniquemeloche.com Tues–Sat 11-6DEPAUL ART MUSEUM Through January 2018 Karen Reimer: Droughtscape (on the wall) Through January 2018 Amanda Williams (off the wall)At DePaul University November 11–January 13, 2018 Carrie Schneider: Moon Drawings935 W. Fullerton Avenue773 325 7506 THE MUSEUM [email protected] / museums.depaul.edu CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHYMon-Tues closed, Wed–Thurs 11-7, Fri–Sun 11-5September 7–December 10 Ângela Ferreira: Zip Zap and Zumbi At Columbia College ChicagoSeptember 7–December 10 Senga Nengudi: Improvisational Gestures 600 S. Michigan Avenue 312 663 5554 [email protected] / www.mocp.org Mon–Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Fri–Sat 10-5, Sun 12-5 October 12–December 22 Disruptive Perspectives

THE NEUBAUER COLLEGIUM RICHARD GRAY GALLERYFOR CULTURE AND SOCIETY Richard Gray Gallery, Hancock: 875 N. Michigan Avenue, 38th FloorAt the University of Chicago Mon–Fri 10-5:30, Sat 11-55701 S. Woodlawn Avenue Gray Warehouse: 2044 W. Carroll Avenue773 795 2329 Wed–Sat [email protected] / www.neubauercollegium.uchicago.edu 312 642 8877Mon–Fri 11-5, Sat–Sun closed [email protected] / www.richardgraygallery.comSeptember 12–December 15 Terence Gower: Havana Case Study September 14–November 11 Jaume Plensa: One Thought FillsTHE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY Immensity (Richard Gray Gallery, Hancock) September 14–November 11 Jaume Plensa: Secret GardenAt the University of Chicago5811 S. Ellis Ave., Cobb Hall, 4th Floor (Gray Warehouse)773 702 [email protected] / www.renaissancesociety.org SCHINGOETHE CENTERTues–Fri 10-5, Sat–Sun 12-5September 9–November 5 Jennifer Packer: Tenderheaded of Aurora UniversityNovember 18–January 28, 2018 Alejandro Cesarco: Song 1315 Prairie Street, Aurora, IL 630 844 7843RHONA HOFFMAN GALLERY [email protected] / www.aurora.edu/museum Mon 10-4, Tues 10-7, Wed–Fri 10-4118 N. Peoria Street September 28–December 13 Strange Weather: Nathalie Miebach312 455 [email protected] / www.rhoffmangallery.com SMART MUSEUM OF ARTTues–Fri 10-5:30, Sat 11-5:30October 21–December 9 David Schutter: Night Work At the University of ChicagoOctober 27–December 9 Jacob Hashimoto: The Dark Isn’t 5550 S. Greenwood Avenue 773 702 0200 The Thing To Worry About [email protected] / www.smartmuseum.uchicago.edu Tues–Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Fri–Sun 10-5 Through January 14 Revolution Every Day Through December 17 The Hysterical Material Through Spring 2018 Emmanuel Pratt: Radical [Re]Constructions

Dance Rules of the Game Lucky Plush Productions Finds Empathy Through Storytelling in Rooming House By Sharon HoyerNewcity NOVEMBER 2017 When Leslie Buxbaum Danzig of 500 interest I had in how regret functions as a story is made. Clown and Julia Rhoads, founder-artistic primary core experience of being human. I director of Lucky Plush Productions team up, thought of it in the context of that story and LBD: What leads people to actions that have the results are a brand of movement-based what happens after Orpheus looks back. I consequences… theater that can be comfortably called, without think for a while we thought that was where exaggeration, genius. For proof, see \"The the production hinged. But it was just a jump- JR: ...in good or bad ways. He lost her forever, Better Half,\" their darkly humorous unpacking ing-off point because we realized that it was but we started bringing in other stories where of marriage, claustrophobia and trust from a connection I personally had with the myth, the outcome was amazing—the man who 2011, and in 2014, \"The Queue,\" their and that myths have multiple points of entry. jumps on another man having a seizure on the delightfully poignant musical set in an airport We began thinking of a myth as a house with tracks of a railway station, shields him from terminal. The two University of Chicago multiple rooms where people might linger. the train and lives—these kinds of decisions. professors join again this fall with \"Rooming Because these stories are so familiar, we And then, as Leslie and I do, we looked for the House\"—playing through November at the might not be attached to the telling of the anchor for the audience. I threw out the idea new Steppenwolf 1700 Theatre—this time story from beginning to end. of the game of Clue. telling a story about telling stories, bounded by the rules in the game of Clue. Buxbaum Julia Rhoads: I never really found the Because of the rooms of the house? Danzig and Rhoads sat down to discuss their connection to Orpheus and Eurydice and I JR: Because of the rooms of the house creative process and the challenges of still don’t necessarily feel like I care that and because of the game structure. We pinpointing the crux of a tale. much about it, except that it is a jumping-off love games. point for more contemporary ideas. The You used Orpheus and Eurydice as a stories I cared about were being generated LBD: It’s fun to use an anchor that’s familiar loose jumping off point. Could you talk by the ensemble—with respect to regret, but for an audience and sets expectations, about some of the themes in \"Rooming also to other offshoots and tangents we were which leads to creating humor, and takes it House\" that arose from the myth? going on. I found myself getting stuck after from being an abstract thing to something Leslie Buxbaum Danzig: It began with an our rst showing on decision points in how a that everyone can hang their hat on.64

JR: We played the game for three LBD: I think that’s true. And stories force a DANCE TOP 5 NOVEMBER 2017 Newcityrehearsals and then played it on our feet to constancy and linearity, but when you startunderstand moving through a house and digging in it starts falling away pretty 1 Rooming House.making decisions. quickly. Allowing there to be illogic and Steppenwolf 1700 Theatre. mess onstage; plays can clean up causality. See feature article. November 4-18LBD: The game structure forces the We’re always wrestling with how to createperformers to tell and retell the stories a piece that an audience can connect to. 2 The Making. Pulaski Park.through different lenses. There’s a question That’s by creating a logic, but then we also The Seldoms' latest,that arises in what is the value of the thing believe the logic breaks down because life collaborative examination of poweras it actually occurred and what is the doesn’t work in a clean way. But how to do structures tunes in to what Ralphvalue of retelling? And when does it cross that in a way that’s inviting to an audience Ellison called \"lower frequencies,\"the line? When is it totally up for grabs in and not alienating. moving wordlessly through thehow it’s told and when is it like, \"Whoa! rooms of the Pulaski Park fieldThat’s too personal.\" We’ve tried to build JR: In dance we use languages that move house. November 9-11, 16-18that sensibility and sense of care. into abstraction. We ask what has the audience understood thus far? Do they 3 Thank You For Coming:JR: Rather than avoiding that, we’ve tried have enough anchors to not feel like Play. MCA Stage. Brooklyn-to not shy away from it. The cool thing they’re flailing? based Faye Driscoll usesfor me is the surprising way this creates movement and theater games (andempathy. If you tell a story from the How does movement come into audience participation) to exploreperspective of someone who was a the storytelling? anxiety and political action.witness as opposed to someone provoking JR: One example came from us wanting November 9-1something to happen, you can put yourself to create something that related to thein a mindset to consider other layers. underworld as a place that’s disorienting. 4 Virago-Man Dem. Dance I made a map of numbers from one to Center of Columbia College.What are the rules of the game? one-hundred and made patterns that COCo. Dance Theatre brings aJR: Like the game of Clue, it’s a process of added up to one-hundred and overlapped. their study of the complexities andelimination. There are rooms with various The idea being that they’re looking for nuances of African-Americanobstacles. connections, but they fade away. It was and Caribbean masculinity to the maddening for them at first because I Dance Center. November 2-4LBD: There’s the room of Weighing Your didn’t want them to use an eight-beat toOptions. Then The Inventive Self—the build the patterns. It’s now one of my 5 A Golden Celebration ofpoint of no return. Looking at each of favorite parts of the show. Dance: Fiftieth Anniversarythese places in an unfolding story. of the Auditorium Theatre's This is your third collaboration. Grand Re-Opening. DancersJR: Every story has so many decisions Has anything changed or evolved from world-renowned companiesinside it—there’s no one decision. That’s in your process? that regularly grace thewhat’s tripped us up in rehearsal. Also, it’s JR: Leslie and I come initially from different Auditorium's stage perform in aexactly what we want to talk about in a formal backgrounds, but both of us one-night commemoration of theshow. I love that kind of mess and created work at the intersection of historic theater. November 12contradiction. It provides an opportunity to movement and theater long before our firstexpose fragments of understanding and collaboration in 2011. Our work togetherhow people make a case. Ultimately was instantly satisfying because ourthere’s an idea of the aftermath and these aesthetic values, curiosities and sense ofquestions around regret which are humor are very aligned. We also joke aboutteachable moments for future deci- our similar cringe factor, which is what wesion-making. call our response mechanism to things we don’t like, such as moments that are overlyCan you give me an example of precious or illustrative. While I continue tosomething that’s tripped you up? create works for Lucky Plush that areLBD: Often in rehearsal there will be an independent of my collaboration withidea that some decision made a thing Leslie, our partnership has impacted all ofhappen. But then it’s like, wait wait wait… my artistic endeavors because it continuesWhat decision are we actually looking at? to teach me about myself. I think that isWhat we thought was the crux of the story probably the best indicator of a successfulwas somewhere entirely different, with a collaboration.different character. Anything else about the performanceJR: Another example is in the structure you'd like to mention?itself. The idea of deliberating: was JR: One interesting thing we're doing that'sOrpheus deliberating when he went down, new for us is that we're interested in howor was he deliberating on the way back language functions. Because we have twoup? It was a structure that became Cubans in the cast we wanted to have aconfusing for us. When does that happen mix of English and Spanish dialogue. Howin a decision-making process? much do audiences need, who aren't Spanish-speaking, to understand? HowYeah, I don’t think it’s often that we’re much can people learn from the bodyin a before or after moment; we’re language and setup? It's new terrain for us.always within the moment we’re inand decisions are happening… At Steppenwolf 1700 Theatre, 1700 NorthJR (snapping): …constantly. Halsted. November 4-18. $40.  65

DesignNewcity NOVEMBER 2017 Diplomacy by Design Balcony, \"Terence Gower: Havana Case Study,\" Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society, 2017. Exploring the Changing Politics of U.S. Embassies in Havana and London with Terence Gower and Kieran Timberlake By Vasia Rigou Cuba, March 1953. The new Havana relations with the government of Fidel Castro diplomatic relations—past, present and future, embassy—a much-anticipated building meant over Cuban accusations that the embassy as with the election of President Trump, to portray the United States as “an open, was a U.S. espionage base. Its doors they’re uncertain once more—what the dynamic and cooperative modern country”— closed. Sixteen years of political turmoil and building itself was initially built to represent, opens its doors. Overlooking the Gulf of lengthy negotiations later, the building would and how this has changed over the years, Mexico on the Malecón through its re ective become home to the newly launched U.S. makes one wonder: How can a structure glass façade, the Modernist-Brutalist-style Interests Section (USINT) under the formal politically and aesthetically represent the building, designed by New York rm Harrison protection of Switzerland, as part of President times in which it is built, but at the same time & Abramovitz, seemed to have it all: Italian-im- Carter’s efforts to improve ties with Cuba— remain relevant across time, political parties ported travertine, French furnishings, Belgian a mission nally accomplished in July 2015 and regimes? What architecture best steel and British of ce partitions. Not only under President Obama. The U.S. ag was represents a country? And is architecture, would the new building change the Cuban raised again and, regaining embassy status, after all, destined to create structures that are capital’s skyline forever, but it would also the aging architectural landmark came back meant to take on lives of their own? showcase the United States as a dynamic, to life. prosperous, progressive, post-World War II All those questions are to be explored in superpower. High praise in the architectural But it wasn’t all smooth sailing: In 2006, under Terence Gower’s latest project, \"Havana Case press followed. In fact, the building was so President Bush, the State Department Study,\" on view at the Neubauer Collegium in well-received that the Museum of Modern Art installed a scrolling billboard to broadcast the light of the second Chicago Architecture included it in an exhibition of new U.S. human rights messaging that included quotes Biennial. Following \"Baghdad Case Study,\" diplomatic architecture later that year. But it by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Abraham the exhibition is the second in an ongoing wouldn’t last long. Lincoln and others. In response, Cuba series of installations by the artist to use renamed the area in front of the building diplomatic architecture—and more speci cal- The building’s climate-control issues— Anti-Imperialist Plaza, creating a “battle eld” ly U.S. embassy buildings—as case studies a ventilation system unable to tame the of political posters, and over a hundred black to examine U.S. international relations. The tropical sun and aluminum windows ags raised high enough to block the view of New York-based Canadian artist is no susceptible to the country’s frequent heavy the electronic sign. The building once again stranger to buildings with complicated downpours—were the least of the embassy’s became the symbol of an era. diplomatic histories. “I’ve been interested in problems. Within eight years, in January U.S. public architecture for a long time, 1961, President Eisenhower broke off Taking into consideration the U.S.-Cuba especially large postwar government-funded66

projects, educational and cultural institutions,” “Buildings are living entities. The political, DESIGN TOP 5he says. “I’ll usually start the research without economic, social and foreign relationsa clear idea what the artwork will be, or if circumstances are dynamic as well,” he adds. 1 Chicago Architecturethere will even be an artwork at the end—the “Prior to World War I, missions were usually Biennial. Chicago CulturalU.S. embassy research was one such project housed in previously built, significantly Center and throughout the city.with no definite endpoint. I first visited Havana located properties near the country’s seat of The architectural happening ofin 2003 [to participate in the Biennial] then government, often in urban areas. The vast a lifetime, or at least every twowent back for several months in 2014,” he expansion of U.S. interests abroad after years, reaches its halfway pointadds, “so the theme of the modern embassy World War II led to a significant building in November. Visitas a site for diplomatic drama developed by campaign of new chanceries and embassies chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/itself and is now living its own life.” and property acquisition as projections of calendar/ to keep up. friendship, influence and power,” he says.Based on extensive research in both “The single most difficult aspect of diplomatic 2 Chicago 7 MostHavana and U.S. archives, Gower brings architecture, post-9/11, is balancing the Endangered 2017 Bustogether a mixed-media installation inside security and safety of the diplomatic corps Tour. Preservation Chicago, 4410and outside the gallery space. Glass, brass, and staff with the representation of the U.S. North Ravenswood. Join acardboard, Mylar, photographs and digital interests abroad. Questions abound: Does guided tour of this year’s list ofprints, all come together—pieces to a puzzle the United States want to project a for- the seven most endangered sites.that spans decades of architecture, urban tress-like appearance and intent that is reces- November 5design and foreign-policy history—in a sive and inward looking? Or does the Unitedcomprehensive exhibition about America’s States express itself with elements of 3 Architect Talk: The Statesouthern neighbors and the relations openness, and transparency? The answers of Architecture withbetween two countries. to these questions wax and wane and Helmut Jahn. Chicago change from one administration to the next, Architecture Foundation. The badInside, four tabletop vitrines dominate the particularly in these volatile, highly polarized, boy of architecture may resemblespace. A closer look reveals two layers of arti- politicized times.” a grand old man but he’s still atfacts, each showcasing two different eras. the heart of controversy inUnder the glass lays pre-1961 archival Things become extra-complicated when it Chicago. November 6documents, period photographs and comes to a diplomatic building specificallyarchitectural models. On top, post-1961 designed to showcase the core values of 4 Cesar Pelli & Art Genslernewspaper clippings, billboard printouts and democracy—transparency, openness, and in Conversation. Wintrustpostcards used by both governments mostly equality. “By no means are they mere Arena, 200 East Cermak. Hearfor propaganda purposes are free for the words, or empty slogans,” says Timberlake from two titans of contemporaryviewer to peruse—Gower’s effort to lure them when asked about the firm’s latest project, architecture and get a chance tointo a deeper engagement with the project. the U.S. Embassy in London—a crystalline check out Pelli’s new ChicagoEventually, material from both eras literally cube on the bank of River Thames edifice, the controversial Wintrustcomes together in \"Political Services,\" scheduled to open later this year. “Transpar- Arena, and maybe even sneak acollages that provide a behind-the-scenes ency, openness, and equality were essential peek at Gensler’s new Marriottlook to both the artist’s research and the goals—touchstones that became a way Marquis next door. November 2countries’ history. of evaluating elements of the design, and measuring their outcomes.” 5 Bowling. GrahamInstalled outdoors, on the gallery’s terrace, Foundation. UrbanLabsits Balcony, a full-scale sculpture of the most From 1950s Havana to 2017 London, discuss their new book, \"Bowling:heavily criticized part of the U.S. embassy diplomatic buildings have a lot in common, Water, Architecture, Urbanism,” anbuilding in Havana: the ambassador’s but at the same time are distinctively unique. exploration of solutions to growingbalcony. The State Department described it “Take the microcosm of embassies and concerns about the effects ofas a “Mussolini-style” symbol of American chanceries representing other nations in natural resource shortages inimperialism—a tribune, from which the U.S. Washington, D.C., as an example,” says cities. Seems kind of timely, yes?government representative could address the Timberlake. “Some blend into the urban November 9Cuban masses, but for Gower it is the most fabric, some are strong architecturalelegant, sculptural form of the building—an statements, and yet others serve as linksintuitive, angled, Breuer-like addition to a between two nations. Many of the choicesquite sober, rectilinear composition. “It made in terms of political interests, expres-naturally translates well into a sculpture,” he sion of wealth, power or influence, or othersays. Yet one cannot help but notice the sorts of statements—such as modernism,replica’s ambiguous nature: is it an element sustainability and environment. The sameunder construction—the cherry on top an applies in the case of the United Statesarchitectural cake soon to be unveiled—or projecting itself abroad.\"just a rotting reminder of a glorious past? By nature, diplomatic architecture is moreInsightful and meticulously researched, the than sleek, high-security, energy-efficient,exhibition moves beyond the history of buildings. It’s meant to represent nations,America's embassy-building program, and their people and values. But moving beyondinto diplomatic architecture at-large—a politics and the aesthetics of politics,discipline whose purpose quite simply, is to architecture is nothing if not destined tohouse, facilitate and represent the mission create structures that are meant to take onand interests of the United States within lives of their own.another country, as James Timberlake,founding principal of Kieran Timberlake, who \"Terence Gower: Havana Case Study,\"discussed designing for diplomacy at the through December 15, Neubauer CollegiumChicago Architecture Foundation this month, for Culture and Society, 5701 Southdescribes it. But that’s just the beginning. Woodlawn, (773)795-2329

&DiDnirningking Iconic Russell’s sign / Photo: David Hammond DINING & DRINKING TOP 5 Beloved by Many 1 Thanksgiving and Cooking Class. Unknown Restaurant Michael, to Most Winnetka. Learn from a master how to master The Ten Best Thanksgiving dinner. Restaurants You’ve $100. November 4 Probably Never Visited 2 CHILL. Merchandise By David Hammond Mart. Fifty chefs make mountains of deliciousness,Newcity NOVEMBER 2017 There are a lot of outstanding restaurants in and usually contains veg and meat. This is the paired with oceans of wine: Chicago that you’ve probably never visited, kind of place where South Asian taxi drivers gorge yourself for charity. little places that don’t advertise or have public stop for a bite, a tea, some conversation and a $125-145. November 9 relations representation. It’s possible you may have chance to catch up on news and movies from the visited one or more of the restaurants on this list, subcontinent. Hyderabad House is open twen- 3 Taste of but for the most part, we’ve focused on places ty-four hours a day, and one must admit it looks Ravenswood. beloved by many and unknown to most. a little beat up. Still, we’ve never been greeted Ravenswood Event Center. with anything other than smiles and hospitality, Malt Row and neighbor- A number of these places don’t have a website. and the biryani is delicious and filling (just what hood chefs, from places They don’t need a website; the people who know you need if you’re going to jump back in your like Band of Bohemia these places love these places and that’s what cab for another shift). On weekends and select and Kitsune, create keeps them coming back, year after year. weeknights, by the front door, there’s sometimes one-night-only pairings. a vendor of paan: a roll of spices, including $70. November 10 Hyderabad House Family DIning fennel and cardamom, a major blast to the On Devon, a target-rich zone for fanciers of palate, wrapped in a betel leaf, considered 4 Passport to France. Indo-Pak chow, Hyderabad House specializes in good for averting flatulence and indigestion. Union League Club. biryani, a pilaf that looks a lot like Rice-a-Roni The French really know 2226 West Devon, (773)381-1230 how to eat and drink; join them for an evening of Gallic gourmandizing. November 16 5 Christkindlmarket. Daley Plaza. Quaint wooden stands with real- live Germans selling beer and sausage and other foods with universal appeal. Opens November 1768

San Soo Gab San Chaparitta serves the kind of food you may say in Chicago, al trunko, using the trunk lid as If you’re a lover of Korean food, it’s highly likely not find at most, perhaps any other, Mexican a tabletop. On warm days, some stand on the you’ve heard of, or perhaps even visited, San restaurants in Chicago. Have you ever had bridge to watch the rare boat pass by. Regu- Soo Gab San. On a cold winter night, there tepache, the fermented, carbonated pineapple lars come for shrimp and fish, some of which are few foods as comforting as fatty beef or drink of Mexico? You can get that here, along used to be harvested locally, all of it either fried pork, cooked over an open fire, at a wooden with aguas frescas and licuados. Never liked or smoked. There’s a smoker in the back table lined with banchan bowls. The heat from chitterlings? The crispy tripas (intestine, not where every morning they load up the smoker the grills, from the meat, from the kimchee and tripe) are served in a taco (surprise!), and the with burning wood and racks of fish, taking it other spicy snacks is enough to warm you on offal has a pleasing texture not found in most out hours later. Those in the know are there even the most frigid days. And even if you’ve other preparations. There are many familiar when the fish come off the smoker, still warm never been to San Soo Gab San, you’re likely items on the menu, like to hear more about it in the years to come: tacos of carne asada and Mark Kotlick, owner, Calumet in 2017, it made it onto the Michelin Bib house-made chorizo, so Fisheries/ Photo: David Hammond Gourmand list of recommended restaurants— don’t feel like you can’t and it’s opening a new location in River West. go to La Chaparitta if You might want to go to the original before you’re not into fifth- it’s tainted by fame. quarter cuts. The menu is wonderful, from the 5247 North Western, (773)334-1589 familiar to the arcane. Schwa 2500 South Whipple, When we visited Schwa some years ago, my daughter and I were having dessert and chef (773)247-1401 Michael Carlson stopped by. “Tell him what you said about dessert,” I told my daughter. Pide ve Lahmacun and runny with juices. On the side of the NOVEMBER 2017 Newcity“What,” said Carlson, “You didn’t like it? I don’t Two foods you can smoker is a mural of St. Bourdain who, give a shit.” My daughter protested, no, she expect in most cultures of course, has been here, too. thought it was one of the best desserts she’d are dumplings and ever had, at which Carlson immediately flatbread, and it’s the 3259 East 95th, (773)933-9855, softened, nodded and said, “Oh, cool, cool…” latter of these twoThat kind of erratic behavior, ragged service, universal foods, in two versions, that you’ll calumetfisheries.com coupled with the restaurant’s off-scope find at the Turkish outpost, Pide ve Lahmacun. location, spare twenty-six-seat dining room Pide is a little dough boat filled with meat and Garifuna Flava and the staff’s legendary tendency not to vegetables, and lahmacun is a more heavily We know you’ve had a lifetime of American return phone calls for reservations made this loaded flatbread, with minced meat and food, and probably Canadian food (at least place forbidding. Rumors had long swirled seasonings—cinnamon, cumin, paprika— Canadian bacon) and very likely Mexican food, about all kinds of crazy stuff, much of it that you’d never find on an Italian pizza. In but there’s probably one North American food, probably urban legend. Now, Schwa has Turkey, pide and lahmacun are as common or at least Caribbean, you’ve never had before: received plaudits from Chicago and New York as hamburgers and hot dogs, though they Belizean. Belize, like Mexico, was in ancient publications, it held onto its Michelin star require more skill to prepare. To drink, it’s times a Mayan territory, but the food is distinct- for seven years, and things—including the going to be tea, but maybe you can give your ly different from the Mayan dishes of Yucatan. undeniably talented Carlson—have calmed. liver a one-night reprieve and take your pide In this small, friendly restaurant, you’ll enjoy It’s safe to go now; please proceed. and lahmacun with tea, the way Turks do. stews and jerk chicken that you’d more likely expect on a Caribbean island than on the1466 North Ashland, (773)252-1466 1812 West Irving Park, (773)248-6344, North American mainland. You haven’t been yet? Well, you should go—the United States Russell’s Barbecue sukursplace.com/pidevelahmacun and Belize are practically neighbors! It’s not the best barbecue in the world, or even the best in the Chicago area but this roadside Fat Johnnie’s Famous Red Hots 2518 West 63rd, (773)776-7440, attraction draws the crowds, mostly local folks When Anthony Bourdain did an early “No who grew up within eyeshot of the trademark Reservations” segment in Chicago, he went garifunaflava.eat24hour.com smokestack with “Russell’s” scrolling down the to Fat Johnnie’s to get an original Chicago side. Since this local favorite has been around sandwich which many of his viewers, no Kie-Gol-Lanee since 1930, it’s conceivably drawing from four doubt—including most Chicagoans—had One of our favorite Mexican restaurants in generations of customers. When it comes to never heard of. It’s a Mother-in-Law, a unique Chicago is this little place on Sheridan. It’s places like Russell’s, you must ask, “What’s Chicago creation. 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Oaxaca, and they still long to taste the bring people in, perhaps not so much for the When people who think they know Chicago artisanal mezcals and iguanas of their home- taste, but for the memory. If you’ve never food wax fondly about Italian beef and deep town. The food they serve, of course, is much been, prepare to be charmed. dish, you can trot out your story about that more suited to gringo tastes without being in time you ate a true Chicago original, the Mother- the least gringo-fied: tlayudas, the flat corn-1621 North Thatcher, Elmwood Park, in-Law at Fat Johnnie’s. Boom: you win. meal pizzas of Oaxaca are a favorite, as are the tamales. For those who require a big hunk (708)453-7065, russellsbarbecue.net 7242 South Western, (773)633-8196 of protein, the lamb barbacoa is delicious. 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Film FILM TOP 5 Places And Faces 1 Human Flow. Music Box. Artist Ai Weiwei works brilliantly at Ai Weiwei’s “Human Flow” commanding scale, and the 145 minutes of “Human Flow” captures in teeming, By Ray Pride intimate detail the daily life of the nearly sixty-six million displaced persons aroundNewcity NOVEMBER 2017 Artist Ai Weiwei works brilliantly at Bicycles” in multiple installations dazzles the world. Faces matter as much as commanding scale, and the 145 in elemental repetitions of a thousand or massed figures. Opens November 6 minutes of “Human Flow” is no exception, fifteen-hundred bicycles. A more pertinent capturing in teeming, intimate detail the example would be Ai’s work wrapping 2 Faces Places. Music Box. daily life of a sampling of the traffic of Berlin’s Konzerthaus in over 14,000 Agnès Varda is a bantamweight nearly sixty-six million displaced persons orange life vests recovered from refugees master of the lightly magical film essay, around the world. Faces matter as much who landed on the Greek island of Lesbos. and her collaboration with muralist JR is a as massed crowds, snaking lines, blissful gift from the eighty-nine-year-old gatherings at walled and wired borders, Along with his large-scale art installations artist. Opens October 27 paused in their ocean crossings, their worldwide, Ai also directed several desert treks. documentaries in China, capturing the 3 Streets of Fire. The Front Row aftermath of crises and cover-ups. For his at Music Box. The first question is Shooting in twenty-three countries across efforts, he became a displaced person in unnecessary: why is there a 70mm print of a year with more than 200 crew members, his own country, jailed on trumped-up Walter Hill’s drenching dreamy pulp rock Ai linked a succession of exoduses charges for eighty-one days in 2011 and fever dream, the lovingly assaultive 1984 through countries including Iraq, Greece, fined nearly $2 million. (Now he lives and “Rock And Roll Fantasy”? The second: Mexico, Italy and Israel. He had not works in Berlin.) What! Only two midnight shows? planned to mount this scale of production, but his observations accumulated, witness “As an artist, I always believe in humanity November 17-18 took him along and carried him away. and I see this crisis as my crisis. I see The patchwork of images of hope and those people coming down to the boats 4 Suspiria. Cinepocalypse at Music survival is nimbly assembled by Niels Pagh as my family,” Ai relates in his director’s Box. There’s a digital restoration of Andersen, editor of Joshua Oppenheimer’s statement. “They could be my children, “Suspiria” on the loose, but Chicago bold documentary essays, “The Act of could be my parents, could be my Cinema Society’s own recently unearthed Killing” and “The Look of Silence.” Tragedy brothers. I don’t see myself as any different 35mm print of the uncut original version and its potential to eddy ever outward are from them. We may speak totally different of Dario Argento and Luciano Tovoli’s present, but Ai’s keen eye for heightening languages and have totally different belief tactile horror masterwork may be the finer an essentially vérité shooting style capture systems but I understand them. Like me, choice. Lead Jessica Harper will appear. telling moments with splendid acuity. they are also afraid of the cold and don’t like standing in the rain or being hungry. November 6 Ai’s sculptural projects of scale tempt Like me, they need a sense of security.” cartoonishness, even buffoonishness, 5 Lady Bird. Greta Gerwig’s through repetition of hundreds and “Human Flow” offers stateliness and hosanna-heralded second thousands of objects, but once set to tempo as correctives in depicting hardly directorial credit, from her own screenplay, exhibit, have near-transcendent impact. fathomable, inexorable catastrophe. is a story of mothers and daughters set in Small things—bicycles, the backpacks States fail and wars murder and genocide early 1980s Sacramento, where she of children who died in the collapse persists. ”As a human being, I believe any grew up; with Saoirse Ronan and Laurie of a school, porcelain sculptures by the crisis or hardship that happens to another Metcalf. Opens November 10 hundred thousand of the shells of human being should be as if it is happen- sunflower seeds—imply larger structures, ing to us,” Ai says. “If we don’t have that rising from banal accretion to breathtaking kind of trust in each other, we are deeply in assemblage. The permutations of “Forever trouble. Then we will experience walls and70

division and misleading by politicians that will decorate your house with—art is directly over and said. “Oh, no,” Varda said, delightmake for a future in the shadows.” related to understanding who we are, what dancing in her eyes, “Blake Edwards! Let us kind of world we live in and what kind of pray, Blake Edwards!” I forgot her age in aThe bright images of Ai’s film are often dreams we have.” twinkle; she’s eighty-nine this year, but herseductive, then troubling, as in the soothing, delight was a child’s, or perhaps a genuinelyeven nurturing blue of inlets at dusk, soon Ai transforms nightmarish material into a inquisitive, ageless sixty-five-year-old. “Facesdotted with a small ship, toppling with dream we can understand, expressing scope Places” (Visages, Villages), her collaborationpassengers in bright orange life vests. There of the world and how artificial boundaries work with thirty-three-year-old muralist JR, is a against human potential, in terms of econo-are also low-flying shots from drones of blissful gift and surprising, gratifyingly coherentdemolished, abandoned cities, of tent cities, mies, beliefs and simply, dignity. Sweeping and contribution to her body of work. Varda and JR swirling, “Human Flow” puts faces, so manyof refugee centers. A couple of figures from take off in his photographer’s truck and makenumbers arrayed: 277,000 refugees in Iraq faces, to the great organism that is our home, a circuit of small towns, meeting villagers,have fled Syrian butchery while there are also this teeming globe. making portraits, creating murals. A commentfour million displaced Iraqis. Ai’s eye is Varda made of one of their subjects—“Peopleexquisite, but not in a maundering, unselfcon- “Human Flow” opens November 3 at the are intense when it comes to their work andscious fashion, but in the sense of frame and Music Box Theatre. words. That woman grew very impassionedtexture and moment, alive, breathing, Reviews about goats and their horns, her convictiontear-tugging from fact observed, not sentimen- was impressive”—is emblematic of her trèstality imposed. Willing, nay, insisting on holding genial rapport and endless curiosity abouton a face, a figure, a drone-seen stretch of Faces Places casual encounters that deepen under hersavage destruction for miles of what was once I have memories of meeting Agnès Varda, gaze. One notable passage comes froma poor but functioning community. the bantamweight master of the lightly magical following up portraits of dockworkers in Le film essay. One is of the diminutive but vastly Havre with a call for their wives to join them“Art has to be involved with the moral and philo- generous filmmaker in a polka-dot dress, large at the port. Like “The Gleaners And I” (2000), Varda breathes life into diffuse material, findingsophical and intellectual conversation. If you white dots on a navy dress, twirling gently the grain in each encounter. What’s fresh andcall yourself an artist, this is your responsibility,” along the cobbles of a pier at the port of vital in the fabric of “Faces Places” is theAi says in the film’s press kit. “Your job as an Thessaloniki, Greece, the azure bay and aartist is expression, so it is equally important to ghostly Olympus providing backdrop. Agnès melancholy bond between two artists at different points in their career, amusing oneexpress your concern about humanity and danced; Agnès smiled. She stopped and another while fashioning the world into ayour values. If I have to define art, art is asked the festival director, “Michel! Do you shared vision. 89m. (Ray Pride)something that has no form, no shape, nor any know a Greek song?” More recently, I waskind of restrictions. Art is a way to fight for honored to be at a small dinner party whereinner freedom. It is also the fighting itself. Art is all hell broke loose, turning into a sustained “Faces Places” opens Friday, October 27 at thenot just something you hang on the wall or set piece of physical comedy. “Tati?” I leaned Music Box. NOVEMBER 2017 Newcity 71

Cinepocalypse effects. Also of note: Marli Renfro, So many festivals, so little curation. who was Janet Leigh’s body double, and, essentially the star of the When news rolled in of the transformation of Bruce Campbell’s reconstruction-deconstruction Horror Film Festival (begun in 2014) we’re witnessing. 91m. (Ray Pride) 164 North State Street • Between Lake & Randolph into “Cinepocalypse,” under the “78/52” opens Friday, November 10 ALL THE QUEEN'S HORSES guiding hands of Josh Goldbloom at the Music Box. and Music Box Theatre general NOVEMBER 10 - 22 manager Ryan Oestreich, the roster The Square Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s NEW FROM KARTEMQUIN FILMS of retrospectives alone was a Inside the Rita Crundwell work takes the public square as both scandal — where did delightful surprise. There are $50 million go? subject and locale. The line between genre fests all over the place withTHE DIVINE public and private is the ripplingORDER “fantastic” and like words, but any measure of his best-known movie, NOVEMBER 17 - 30 festival bringing together writer-di- the sly, piercing black comedy Suffragettes, Swiss style! rectors Larry Cohen and Joe “Massively entertaining” Carnahan, actors Antonio Fargas, “Force Majeure,”(2014) the story of a — Film-Forward man, his family, an avalanche. “Force Eric Roberts, Barbara Crampton BUY TICKETS NOW at Majeure,” a worldwide success, www.siskelfilmcenter.org and Jessica Harper gets a rapidly demonstrated a rare knack for JOIN IFP CHICAGO AS WE raised eyebrow and a solemn, of supporting independent filmmakers and their work choreographing forces as vast as a for a night of drinks, entertainment, and raffle prizes! affirming nod. Goldbloom holds growing, roaring avalanche building Tickets available now @ ifpchicago.org/birthday-bash simple criteria: “no-holds-barred toward a ski resort to the blocking of badass cinema.” Larry Cohen, director of “It’s Alive,” gets a lifetime a husband and wife brushing their teeth in front of the mirror in a hotel achievement award and presents bathroom. Working largely in his little-seen “The Ambulance” restrained, refined tableau style, the alongside Eric Roberts as well as a new doc about his career. Actor geometry of intimacy is pitted against the inevitable forces of conflict in Antonio Fargas presents “Foxy public spaces, from other hotel Brown” and “I’m Gonna Git You guests to eccentric cleaners to goofy Sucka.” The Chicago Cinema children. “The Square,” takes not Society’s newly unearthed 35mm only the title but the underlying forces print of “Suspiria”’s uncut release is on the schedule, along with star of Östlund’s work in its jumpy, jangly satire of the modern art world, its Jessica Harper. (Ray Pride) “Cinepocalypse” runs November 2-9. makers, its merchants, its frauds, Full schedule at musicboxtheatre.com its ripe potential for vicious satire. The square is the marketplace, the 78/52 meeting of dealers, the performance Seventy-eight camera setups, piece at the core of the corrosive fifty-two edits, three minutes, comedy, and most emphatically, a the slashing strings of Bernard self-satisfied Swedish middle class. Herrmann’s score: that’s the The styles of comedy and perfor- centerpiece of “Psycho,” Alfred mance zig and zag within the Hitchcock’s 1960 conceptual generous range of sweetly surly fake-out on horror and audience vignettes in “The Square,” from identification. It’s also the heart of lightly surreal to lavishly farcical, and Alexandre O. Philippe’s loving, talky performances are compelling even at their oddest turns, including Claes and sometimes even quite funny experimental documentary, “78/52: Bang as the harried manager of the contemporary art museum and Hitchcock’s Shower Scene,” an exceptionally literal title, leavened by Elisabeth Moss as an American the inclusion of that “slash” right up journalist who struggles against hope to get him to decipher the front. The close reading includes tortuous critical prose from the comments from thirty-nine museum’s website. The deliciously filmmakers, editors and other technicians like Peter Bogdanovich, physical, tour-de-force centerpiece, Guillermo del Toro, Leigh Whannell a raging display of performance art and Karyn Kusama. “This was the at a dinner party, rises to a high level of Scandinavian-style provocation, first modern expression of the its black-on-black comedy ranging female body under assault,” from embarrassment to mortification Kusama observes, “and in some ways its most pure expression.” As and back again, to a near-certain chance of abrupt violence. Manners in Rodney Ascher’s “Room 237,” and decorum are at risk, but so are that deep dive into theories about the character’s manifestations of Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” Philippe’s formal play extends upon self-delusion and downright selfishness, captured in squares the practice of the critical video of their own making as well as essay to find its own way into the hypnosis of film, montage and fear. the greater public sphere. 142m. (Ray Pride) Plus, master of sound and image Walter Murch has his own way into “The Square” opens Friday, Novem- the heart of the scene’s sound ber 10 at the Music Box.

Live at The Book Cellar IN THE FORMER BOOKMAN’S ALLEY SPACE AT 1712 SHERMAN AVE, EVANSTON Kevin Cunningham Local Author Night Holiday Shopping Can Still be Fun!“Home Ice: Confessions of a with Melissa Fraterrigo, Join us for Blackhawks Fan” John Kerstetter, Sandee Drake November 2, 7pm and Michelle Carter My Chicago Bookstore: November 15, 7pm A Day-Tripping Taste of Three Great Local Indies Storytime with Miss Jamie! Witty Women #11 Sunday November 12, 11 am – 4 pm November 3, 11am Spend a day exploring (and noshing) your way through with Amy Guth, Stacey Ballis, three of Chicago’s finest indie bookstores: Bookends & Beginnings,John McNally Claire Zulkey and Wendy McClure Women & Children First, and The Book Cellar. Ticket includes November 16, 7pm transportation and lunch at Evanston’s Farmhouse Restaurant“The Boy Who Really, Really Wanted To Have Sex: David Rocklin Nibbling & Tippling with the The Memoir of a Fat Kid” Authors of The Chicago Food Encyclopedia November 3, 7pm “The Night Language” November 17, 7pm and Beermiscuous Field Guide Christina Bauer Essay Fiesta! Small Business Saturday – November 25, 5 pm – 7 pm“Wolves and Roses” with a Twist! Sample some of the foods that define Chicago as a Foodie City – November 8, 7pm November 20, 7pm and some of the best contemporary local craft beers. Free!Jen Lancaster November 25 DETAILS AT“The Gatekeepers” Small Business Saturday WWW.BOOKENDSANDBEGINNINGS.COM November 9, 7pm Shop Local OR 224.999.7722The Kates!! Story Studio Presents! November 10, 7pm Readings with Hannah Gamble, My Chicago Bookstore Richard Thomas and their students November 30, 7pm A Day-Tripping Taste of Three Great Local Indies A bus tour (with lunch) of Bookends & Beginnings, Women and Children First and The Book Cellar November 12, 11amGo to our website for event details, book clubs and more!Your Independent Book Store in Lincoln Square!4736-38 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago773.293.2665 • bookcellarinc.com

Lit Photo: Cornelia Spelmen LIT TOP 5 Linguistic Time, the 1 Bearden’s Odyssey. Poetry Quotidian Beyond a Day Foundation. Kwame Dawes, Matthew Shenoda and the nineteenth Reginald Gibbons Discusses “The Orchard in the Street” U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey read from “Bearden’s By Michael Workman Odyssey: Poets Respond to the Art of Romare Bearden” and discuss theNewcity NOVEMBER 2017 An anchor of the Chicago literary things I could do with the old ones and the artist’s work. November 27, 7pm community from his perch at North- new ones together that would produce a western University, Reginald Gibbons has book more like what I want now. I have to 2 Gwendolyn Brooks: The cultivated the city’s language cultures for say, even though I’m older, this one’s more Golden Shovel. Gallery decades. Gibbons fostered such talents as adventurous than the earlier one. Guichard. The Chicago Humanities Aleksandar Hemon and Angela Jackson, all Festival partners with poets from while publishing collections of poetry, short I’ve written a fair amount of fiction over the “The Golden Shovel Anthology” to fiction and a novel. I sat down with the years. In my novel from the nineties, I did celebrate Gwendolyn Brooks’ prolific author, poet and language artist to a little experimenting with voices and centennial, featuring Brenda discuss his latest book, “The Orchard In language, different versions of English with Cárdenas, Reginald Gibbons, the Street.” their attitudes included—set in east Texas. Janice Harrington and Peter Kahn. It produced a kind of linguistic environment What was the time frame that your in which the characters move, not just a November 3, 6pm collection of stories was written in? social one, the natural environment. And Oh, they go back a long ways. It’s a with these little pieces, I realized I had not 3 Isabel Allende and Luis rewriting and an expansion of a much really portrayed a full environment. An Urrea. Senn High School smaller book I published in the nineties. I imaginative environment, as full as I would Auditorium. Luis Urrea interviews kept writing these pieces all along. When I do now. I had a lot of others. I had many Isabel Allende about her new got to the point where I thought I wanted to more that I could have put in the book that novel “In the Midst of Winter.” put out another collection of them, I saw I didn’t. I took some out that started the that—re-reading everything—there were earlier version. November 2, 7pm 4 Danez Smith and Eve Ewing. Women and Children First Bookstore. Danez Smith, winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, reads from “Don’t Call Us Dead: Poems” and Eve L. Ewing reads from “Electric Arches.” November 4, 7:30pm 5 Liesl Olson: Chicago Renaissance. American Writers Museum. Liesl Olson traces Chicago’s literature and art during the first half of the twentieth century. November 16, 5pm74

Was there a particular story that started the decades as the perspective grows longer In “Rhythm Is a Dancer,” Kay Ulanday Barrett this collection off? and more terrifying. evokes a particular brand of mischief, trans Oh gosh, I don’t know. I’ve published and queer kids out dancing in “the pants or about thirty normal-length short stories over You’re reading with Ed Roberson. Have shirt you were forbidden / to wear at home.” the years and these little ones and that big you known each other awhile? They celebrate what dazzling possibility can fat novel. These things are lost in my own I’ve known Ed for a long time, since he first cut through the chokehold of this world to mists now. came to Chicago, maybe thirteen years or our bodies. something like that when he came to Chicago How does this mark a change of shift to teach at Columbia College. Then at This anthology is one to read and re-read, to in your work—to mine the poetics of Northwestern for a total of maybe seven years tend and digest lovingly. In Ulanday Barrett’s prose? Is that still a functioning bench- more. I said I have a long view of time, but it’s words, this text exists “to celebrate, / to honor, mark for you? certainly not a calendrical view of time! I love / to love, / to embrace, / all our movements.” You know, when I started writing this kind of his work and he’s been a good reader of mine, (Sung Yim) thing, there was already a lot of prose poetry. so that’s been a lucky artistic friendship for me.That effectively began in the nineteenth century In fact, I suggested we read together because “Subject to Change: Trans Poetry & Conversa- with Baudelaire and Rimbaud but there was I’ve been wanting to do something with him tion” Edited by H. Melt, Sibling Rivalry Press, plenty of American prose poetry. What I was for years and we haven’t actually ever had the 110 pages, $17 writing I didn’t think of as prose forms. I used right opportunity. And, since his big, amazing to call them “narrative meditations” or book “To See the Earth Before the End of The book launch is on November 8, 7:30pm“meditative narratives,” though that wasn’t the World” was coming out in paperback, at Women and Children First Bookstore, adequate either. Some of them were as much I thought fine, we both have books. 5233 North Clark, (773)769-9299. as three or four pages long. There’s something about each one making a little journey that Reginald Gibbons and Ed Roberson read The Cuban Club may hold it together. on November 2, 6pm at The Seminary Barry Gifford’s new coming-of-age collection, Co-Op Bookstore, 5751 South Woodlawn, “The Cuban Club,” is masterfully written, It’s a question of a particular kind of fiction (773)752-4381. cinematic and personal. He revisits the life of which is very short and is widespread in Roy, Gifford’s boy and teen alter ego who he Europe. There are lots of books published in Reviews has written about before (but knowledge of Germany, France, probably Spain, Italy— prior Roy stories is not a prerequisite.) Roy’s I don’t know about England—that are like this. Subject to Change dad is an immigrant mobster, his mother a Even though there’s a huge rage now for flash This is a time of dangerous visibility, of stolen former model nineteen years younger who likes fiction, it’s exploding, I would say. I think they’re lives and authorship. Trans representation is the good life her husband’s success affords going to do a lot more books like this now. still most often helmed by cis writers and them. Their marriage doesn’t last, nor do her curated by cis editors. “Subject to Change,” subsequent three. Roy longs to spend more I learned a lot from my friend and fellow writer edited by Chicago artist and poet H. Melt, is time with his father, a man who doesn’t talk Stuart Dybek when I read, years ago, “The an urgent declaration of rightful ownership by about his past but tries to set an honorable Coast of Chicago.” It’s his book with very short trans writers over their own stories. Joshua example for his son. By the time he’s twelve, narratives and with some things that people Jennifer Espinoza’s lines, “How long can I Roy knows he must rely on himself. would think of as prose poems. Maybe he did, keep tricking you / into thinking what I’m doing too. You know, it all depends on the frame into / is poetry / and not me begging you / to let The sixty-four tales bounce around the years which you put the picture. What’s the context us live?” serve as a melancholy signpost for of Roy’s youth, following his innocent yet keen, for it? I actually have included in one of my this anthology, which reads like tended street-smart, laconic observations about books of poems called “Saints,” I think it was wounds more than words, care in motion relationships, romance and tragedy, reminis-1986, and I put maybe five of these in this more than writing at rest. For example, cent at times of Russell Banks.His parents book. And at that time I didn’t realize what I Christopher Soto’s “All the Dead Boys Look take him from Chicago (Gifford’s birthplace) to was doing. Like Me” written after the Pulse nightclub New Orleans, Florida, the Caribbean and back, shooting, carries the powerful rhythm of a in the 1950s and early sixties. Set in the gritty, In “Near the Spring Branch,” you’re grievous dirge, like chewing a bitter herb. violent and character-studded Chicago of talking about this idea of narrative A medicine that hurts. the era of Nelson Algren, the local entries are landscape, there’s this depiction of imaginable only in black-and-white, like the youth and memory in that story that In “Essay on the Theory of Motion,” Cam films noir Roy memorizes. The kid has a seems evocative of that approach. Awkward-Rich challenges dominant narratives perspective of place that most of his friends It’s also very meditative, you can see that. of transness through wry wisdom, quoting an don’t have the luxury of developing. In Gifford’s I don’t really have a story to tell. It’s not— unnamed scholar who expresses a sense of post-Batista Miami, you envision vivid, not well, okay, anything is poetry, that’s where we belonging at airports “because there everyone pastel, color. The characters are predatory are. So somebody else may have written it is in transition.” This metaphor is subverted and oversexed. and said, “This is my poem.” If I had put it in later, when airports are presented as places lines, in long, prose-y lines, maybe somebody where the futility of personal liberation is most These remembrances capture the timeless- would have been willing to publish it as a evident, where bodies are scrutinized and ness of loneliness and longing. Gifford’s poem. I do like to think of it as something I defined by capitalistic bureaucracy. omniscient voice and concise style take you wanted to do in prose. I like to try to get from on a trip through the paradoxical foundational one place to another, that’s the movement, beyza ozer writes with omnipresent focus, experiences that shape the inner life of a man the narrative of the piece. It may only be a occupying the finite body of a poet, a Turkish compelled by wanderlust and a desire for psychical narrative, but there has to be some immigrant living in Chicago and a fan of connection. (Kate Burns) kind of movement. In that one, there’s “Gilmore Girls” while space rolls on into forever. physical space that’s evoked, but there’s also Transness lives parallel to, in conflict against “The Cuban Club” By Barry Gifford, this movement through time—which I seem and intrinsic within each facet of self—a Seven Stories Press, 240 pages, $23.95 to be spending more and more imaginative kaleidoscope in constant flux. We’re offered energy on at this point in my life. You know, the touching, wistful sentiment that all Barry Gifford reads, with music by Jason in each stage of life you have a sense of time, bodies—tiny or gargantuan—are celestial Adasiewicz and band, on November 4, how fast or slow it moves and what it feels bodies, strung together in tensile balance 8:30pm at Constellation, 3111 North Western. like to be in it. This sense changes through like icicles. Tickets are $10.

Music Kayleigh Butcher / Photo: Karjaka Studios MUSIC TOP 5 Vexed By the 1 Bonnie Koloc. SPACE. Vox There’s been a spate of folk-music legends coming to Coming to Terms town of late; Koloc is the one with Classical Singing who’s been here all along. By Seth Boustead November 19Newcity NOVEMBER 2017 I had no idea what I was stumbling into recommended vocal music to me. When I got 2 Cassandra Wilson and when, on New Year’s Day 2016, I posted a to music school a few years later, the vocal Liam Ó Maonlaí. Old hastily written, ill-advised blog entry denigrating music department was practically a separate Town School. The smoldering sopranos. It was shared on Facebook, quickly entity from the rest of the school and somehow jazz chanteuse and scorching went viral and enraged so many people that I I never stopped to think how strange this was. Irish soul singer cook up an publicly apologized and took down the post. unlikely but irresistible rapport. But, turns out it’s not strange at all. According I’m not generally a controversial person, so to the writer Matthew Lasar, “One of the November 10 to have all of this happen before I had even problems with much classical music education recovered from the previous night’s festivities is that it omits or glosses over vocal classical 3 Vijay Iyer. Harris Theater. was deeply unsettling. content.” Which spills over into public life as The multi-genre comp- well, as Lasar relates: “Back when I worked oser-pianist teams with players The outcry, though, was an appropriate at a New York City record store in the 1970s, from the CSO for his audacious response to an article that was badly misin- I often helped newbies taking their first classical chamber piece “Time, Place, formed, poorly written and which repeated music appreciation course find appropriate Action.” November 13 many hurtful stereotypes about classical albums. They displayed something close to singers, sopranos in particular. Worse, the an allergy to vocal music.” 4 Kurt Elling. City Winery. article raised many points that merit discussion The edgy, uber-urbane but which were overshadowed by my tone- Classical music radio has picked up these jazz singer performs material deaf handling of the subject. prejudices as well. KDFC in San Francisco from his transformative came under fire in 2012 for airing classical Christmas album, “The For anyone who, like me, grew up listening vocal repertoire either exclusively in off-hours Beautiful Day.” November 25 exclusively to pop music, the sound of classical or—and this next bit is especially wild—with singing can be strange, even off-putting. the vocal parts replaced with cellos or violins. 5 Kacy & Clayton. It takes getting used to, and even within It turns out that this practice has been wide- Schubas. Kacy classical music circles, vocal music is kind of spread in radio and has created a self-fulfilling Anderson’s bell-like voice and its own thing. prophecy in which listeners now bristle at the Clayton Linthicum’s plangent mere thought of vocal music. strumming find the Appalachian In my teens, when I became wildly interested heart in even the most cynical in classical music, I listened almost exclusively Lasar writes, “this situation is so strange and breast. November 10 to symphonic and chamber music; no one contrived. Every other format on the FM dial is76

about vocal music: rock, folk, was shocking at the time, butcountry, jazz, hip-hop. Only which most composers haveclassical radio suppresses this since abandoned.most human aspect of themusical experience during the Which presents an interestinghours when most people listen challenge for the fifteen compos-to radio.” ers commissioned to write one-minute movements related inClassical radio programmers some way to each of the fifteenmay well respond that the sound poems set by Schönberg.is unpopular, but this is clearly a Composers, like all creative types,problem classical music created are constantly hoping to forgefor itself. So, allow me to ask the new ground and, though thedumb question we’re all thinking: general public may not know it,Why is classical singing so atonal writing has been passédifferent from pop singing? for some time.According to Kayleigh Butcher, “I think it will be eye-opening fora mezzo-soprano who specializes some people who still thinkin contemporary music, classical Schönberg is contemporary andsingers have a different sound really experimental,” says Butcher,largely because they’re trained “to have it juxtaposed with actualto sing without amplification. contemporary classical music inspired by this (what I deem)This means they need a specific older contemporary tradition. Thetechnique for breath placement new commissions, written thisand pressure in order for the year, are significantly moresound to carry and be even unusual and shocking. I like thethroughout the range and project idea of blowing people’s mindsto the back of any hall, and— with how far composers havemost importantly—so that the come since the early twentiethsinger doesn’t hurt herself as so century and programming themmany pop singers have done. right next to each other.” For a pop singer, being amplified As she says, this concert isn’t NOVEMBER 2017 Newcity itself can lead to injuries because for the casual listener. If you think there is less emphasis on a that straightforward classical vocal technique that aims to protect the music like Renee Fleming singing voice; and in fact it’s often the Schubert sounds weird after flaws in the voice that provide listening to Rihanna, then this the distinctive sound, with some will be downright bizarre. But singers even intentionally roughing when you remember what the up their voices by smoking intention of the composer is, cigarettes, drinking whiskey or the text that is being set and the gargling Drano to “improve” demands made of the singer, their sound. it’s a fascinating experience to hear it sung live in an intimate As for Butcher, in addition to venue like Constellation. being a great singer with a healthy interest in contemporary music, As for me, I’ve learned that she’s also an imaginative concert writing off the entire canon of producer and is collaborating with classical vocal music because pianist Christopher Narloch at of a bad experience with one Constellation on November 19: singer (Kathleen Battle singing“The Schönberg Project,” a spirituals) is just asinine. As Chevy performance of Arnold Schön- Chase’s character says in “Spies berg’s rarely heard early twenti- Like Us”: “We mock what we eth-century vocal work, “The don’t understand.” Book of the Hanging Gardens,” alongside newly commissioned Taking the time to better under- pieces inspired by it. stand classical vocal music has been deeply rewarding and I’m“The Book of the Hanging Gardens” excited to check out the Schön- is a song setting of expressionistic berg Project. On a separate note, poems by Stefan George, and is I’m also truly thrilled that I don’t the classic tale of boy meets girl in have to watch “Spies Like Us” a garden, girl symbolizes garden, again any time soon. girl leaves garden and garden disintegrates. Schönberg was The Schönberg Project, Sunday, looking for a new musical November 19, 8:30pm at vocabulary, and found it in an Constellation, 3111 North atonal harmonic language which Western. Admission $5-$10. 77

ROCKEFELLER CHAPEL PRESENTS . . .CHICAGO PRESENTS CHICAGO HUMANITIES FESTIVAL CHORAL SERVICESamarcord Alan Alda and Schütz Musikalische  Edward O. Wilson ExequienLuther and Music | 500th anniversary SUNDAY NOVEMBER 5 | 2 PM SUNDAY NOVEMBER 5 | 11 AMof the Lutheran Reformation A master communicator and the “senior TUESDAY NOVEMBER 7 | 4:30 PM statesman of science” in conversation.FRIDAY NOVEMBER 17 | 7:30 PM The Chapel Choir, conducted by James Danielle Allen Kallembach, sings Heinrich Schütz’sAmarcord, one of the world’s premier vocal mesmerizing Musikalische Exequien for theensembles, offer five Gregorian chants, SUNDAY NOVEMBER 5 | 4 PM All Saints Day requiem on the first Sundayin Latin and in Martin Luther’s translation, Discussing Cuz: An American Tragedy. of November, followed by a Tuesdayalongside Reformation and Counter afternoon Vespers performance. Free.Reformation era motets by J.S. Bach based CHF tickets at chicagohumanities.orgon these chants. Tickets $39, students $11,under-18s $1, at tickets.uchicago.edu. Save the date: Sunday December 3, 3 pm HANDEL’S MESSIAH A beloved Rockefeller tradition since 1928!ROCKEFELLER CHAPEL 5850 S. WOODLAWN AVE., CHICAGO, IL 60637 rockefeller.uchicago.edu

STAGE TOP 5 Stage2016 Community Actors Program TheSummer Final Presentation with Gabriel1 Welcome to Jesus. Other American Theater Company. SideN., Myanna D., Aubrianna B., MarkelleJanine Nabers’ darkly funny and of theC./ Photo: Sara Pooley powerful new play unearths the Curtain tyranny of small-town life and the How Community- power of prejudice to define our Engaged, Socially fate. Opens October 30 Conscious Theater Is Changing the2 Fade. Victory Gardens Landscape of Theater. In this witty Performance in behind-the-scenes drama, an Chicago ambitious TV writer strikes up an By Danielle Levsky unlikely friendship with a custodian, but as their friendship grows, Community-engaged, socially conscious and presence,” says Free Street artistic his stories start to blur with hers. theater is what Free Street Theater in director Coya Paz. “Theater does not make Opens November 10 Pilsen has been striving to produce since its social change but you can use theater to NOVEMBER 2017 Newcity affect social change experts.”3 The Belle of Amherst. Court inception in 1969. They focus on what Theatre. Emily Dickinson’s own original poems, diary entries happens in the many communities of Chicago, and letters welcome us into her Massachusetts home, where she including those that are not often represented Chicago native artist, activist and academic shares snippets of joy and creation amongst the heartache of an at the mainstream theaters.“The reason Free Ricardo Gamboa thinks that “artists are isolated and misunderstood life. Street is able to continue is because actual absolutely crucial to movement building Opens November 11 Chicagoans all across Chicago are contribut- and social justice.” Gamboa is working in4 Lizzie. Firebrand Theatre. The first musical theater ing to the work in some way,” says Free collaboration with Free Street Theater on company committed to employing and empowering women by Street’s youth program manager Katrina Dion. “Meet Juan(ito) Doe,” a play about Mexican expanding opportunities on and off the stage presents its inaugural Americans on the South Side of Chicago, production, the rock musical based on the true-life story of accused In every instance, they are focused on getting which will be performed on the South Side axe-murderess Lizzie Borden. to those stories. “Theater requires schedule by Mexican Americans. Opens November 145 The Minutes. Steppenwolf Theatre Company. This scathing new comedy from Tracy Letts covers small-town politics and real-world power. Opens November 19 79

Quenna Barrett, education programs manager a youth-adult partnership program. FYI problematic spaces. I want new spaces.” at University of Chicago’s Arts + Public Life at the Arts Incubator, works with teen performers programs are designed as participatory theater Gamboa says. at the Community Actors Program (CAP), in partnership with After School Matters in experiences that engage youth in conversations However, there are also mainstream theaters six-week apprenticeships to cultivate a short play or collection of scenes that respond to about sexual health and sexual violence. FYI community issues. “I wish I had space to have offers theater-based workshops and “mash up” taking risks and doing good work to support these conversations when I was a young underrepresented or marginalized communities person,” says Barrett. “I wanted to provide a the theater residency model, according to space for brown girls to tell their stories so they ICAH’s cultural strategies consultant Nik Zaleski. in Chicago. For instance, the Goodman’s could see themselves because growing up, community and education programs open I never saw myself in TV or media.” These theater companies, small performance doors and make opportunities available for The company members of FEMelanin, a collective of multidisciplinary, self-identified troupes and large educational organizations people who may not have the same access femme artists of color, also want to create art that they would have wanted to see as children. share a commonality: a commitment to social or privilege. Their latest piece, “Epic Tales from the Land of Melanin,” was performed at the Chicago Fringe justice activism. With every production and art Festival and was based on histories of real-life piece, they are exploring and challenging the “We’re pushing our work to the front,” says women of color and non-Eurocentric fairytales. history of traditional and mainstream theaters. FEMelanin company member Brandi Lee. Each “We offer a different take on the story of artist has to think about what their boundaries colonization or gentrification that can affect the Free Street’s “Meet Juan(ito) Doe” focuses on other stories being brought into the script,” are, how they’re willing to show up, and to explains company member Mariana Green. reaching people within their own community. “We utilize the idea that a story can be told in The company rented a storefront in Back of the which spaces they want to apply their time. By a multitude of ways.” putting themselves in places where marginal- Yards so they could reach the audience they Company member Alyssa Vera Ramos is wanted. “We’re not going to rent out a theater ized communities are not well represented, it also involved with For Youth Inquiry (FYI) can be a form of infiltration. That can take in partnership with the Illinois Caucus for on the North Side to put on a play about the Adolescent Health (ICAH) as their movement city’s Mexican-American population when that many forms, and more often than not, it’s building coordinator, where she runs the theater would be inaccessible to that audience,” uncomfortable and exhausting. Change, Heal, Act Together (CHAT) Network, says Gamboa emphatically. “Writing a play as a person of color and having More than seventy percent of public arts funding it be in a festival that is primarily full of white playwrights is also infiltration,” Ramos adds. goes to North Side-based Chicago theaters. “What’s not okay is for people to tell us how to Gamboa thinks larger changes need to be made to the institutions of mainstream theaters show up, if we’re choosing to show up in the first place. Some larger, mid-sized institutions in Chicago. “Let the old guard die off,” says are putting their money where their mouth is by Gamboa. “So much of the desire of theater artists is inclusion or recognition. They want to recognizing themselves as institutions,” she be at an exalted, problematic institution. They says, “giving their space to marginalized or underrepresented communities and hiring from end up reinforcing these institutions…as those communities.” opposed to trying to transform them entirely. I don’t want just increased representation in JUST 7 PERFORMANCES NOV 19 | 22 | 25 | 29 | DEC 4 | 7 | 10 | Bold = Matinee PearlTheBIZET Fishers A sweepingly romantic drama from the composer of CarmenNewcity NOVEMBER 2017 Performed in French with projected English translations 3 1 2 . 8 2 7. 5 6 0 0 LY R I CO P E R A .O R G Lyric Opera presentation of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers generously made possible by Sylvia Neil and Daniel Fischel. Production owned by San Diego Opera. 80

A scathing new comedy about small-town “A THING OF politics and real world power SOULFUL THE DELIGHT” MINUTES –Chicago Tribune A world premiere by ensemble member Tracy Letts(August: Osage County, Mary Page Marlowe, Superior Donuts) Directed by artistic director Anna D. Shapiro (August: Osage County, Mary Page Marlowe, The Motherf**ker with the Hat) Featuring ensemble members Kevin Anderson, Ian Barford, Francis Guinan, James Vincent Meredith, Sally Murphy and William Petersen with Brittany Burch, Cliff Chamberlain, Danny McCarthy, Penny Slusher and Jeff Still SHARING JOY & HOLIDAY MAGIC FOR YEARS NOVEMBER 18 – DECEMBER 31 Tickets start at $20 SENSORY-FRIENDLY PERFORMANCE NOV 9 – DEC 31 SATURDAY, DECEMBER 30steppenwolf.org | 312-335-1650 Learn more at GoodmanTheatre.org/SensoryPerformance Major Production Sponsor 312.443.3800 GoodmanTheatre.org GROUPS OF 15+ ONLY: 312.443.3820 Major Corporate Sponsors Corporate Sponsor Partners

Newcity NOVEMBER 2017 Life is BeautifulBy David Alvarado82

DAN PETERMAN & Logan CenterHEINRICH JAEGER Family SaturdaysIN CONVERSATION Join us for fabulous, fun, andThu, Nov 9, 6pm FREE family programs on theFree first Saturday of each monthGray Center for Arts & October 2017–June 2018!Inquiry, 929 E 60th Streetarts.uchicago.edu/artsscience Appropriate for families with children ages 2-12.Artist Dan Peterman andphysicist Heinrich Jaeger arts.uchicago.edu/discuss the collaboration loganfamilysaturdaysthat generated thesculptural installationSlipping and Jamming:Variable Installation ofZ-Forms (on view in theWilliam EckhardtResearch Centerthrough November 30).LOGAN CENTER FOR THE ARTS 2017–2018 SEASON IN CONVERSATION WITH JAZZ AT THE LOGAN TEJU COLE THE BRIDGE Wed, Nov 15, 7pm | Free ARTIST RESIDENCIESUNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESENTS Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E 60th Street AACM SERIES dova.uchicago.edu THIRD TUESDAY JAZZ Presented by the Department of Visual Arts, Creative Writing, IOP CHICAGO STAGE and The Karla Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture, AT THE LOGAN Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture, Critical Inquiry, Gray Center for Arts and the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts. JAZZ X-TET For more information on all jazz events happening at the Logan Center this season, visit arts.uchicago.edu/loganjazz.

NOWAT THE MCATUESDAYS AREFREE FOR ILLINOISRESIDENTS!OPEN UNTIL 9 PM WE ARE HERE Through Apr 1, 2018 MCA Stage Faye Driscoll Thank You For Coming: Play Thu–Sun, Nov 9–12 MICHAEL RAKOWITZ: BACKSTROKE OF THE WEST Through Mar 4, 2018MUSEUM OF Francis Bacon, Study for Portrait, 1949. Oil on canvas; 58 � × 51 � in. (149.4 × 130.6 cm).CONTEMPORARY ART mcachicago.org/now Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, gift of Joseph and Jory Shapiro,CHICAGO #mcachicago 1976.44. © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved/DACS, London/ARS, New York 2017. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago. Faye Driscoll, Thank You For Coming: Play. Pictured: Sean Donovan, Alicia Ohs, Brandon Washington, Paul Singh, and Laurel Snyder. Photo: Whitney Brewer. Installation view, Michael Rakowitz, The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one’s own, Tate Modern, January–May 2010. © Michael Rakowitz. Photo © Tate Photography.