October 30, 2013

2 South Side WeeklY ¬ october 30, 2013

IN CHICAGOA week’s worth of developing stories, odd events, and signs of the times, culled from the desks,

inboxes, and wandering eyes of the editors

The South Side Weekly is a newsprint magazine produced by students at the University of Chicago, for and about the South Side. The Weekly is distributed across the South Side each Wednesday of the academic year.

In fall 2013, the Weekly reformed itself as an independent, student-directed organiza-tion. Previously, the paper was known as the Chicago Weekly.

Editor-in-Chief Harrison SmithExecutive Editor Claire WithycombeManaging Editor Bea Malsky

Senior Editors John Gamino, Spencer McavoyPolitics Editor Osita NwanevuStage & Screen Hannah NyhartEditorMusic and Zach Goldhammer Video EditorVisual Arts Editor Katryce LassleContributing Editors Ari Feldman, Josh Kovensky, Sharon Lurye, Meaghan MurphyPhoto Editor Lydia GorhamLayout Editor Olivia Dorow HovlandOnline Editor Gabi Bernard

Senior Writer Stephen UrchickStaff Writers Dove Barbanel, Bess Cohen, Emily Holland, Jason Huang, Jack NuelleStaff Photographer Camden BauchnerStaff Illustrators Hanna Petroski, Isabel Ochoa Gold

Business Manager Harry Backlund

5706 S. University Ave.Reynolds Club 018Chicago, IL 60637

SouthSideWeekly.com

Contact the editor at [email protected]

For advertising inquiries, contact:(773)[email protected]

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

october 30, 2013 ¬ South Side WeeklY 3Cover photo by Lydia Gorham.

Gambling the Night AwayIllinois’ ten factories of human despair, popularly known as casi-nos, will continue to be required to close for at least two hours a day. Though Illinois was the second state to legalize riverboat casinos, ca-sino owners’ requests for permission to operate 24/7 have repeatedly been denied. Lobbyists, on the one hand, said that the change could bring in a sorely-needed $5 million in revenue for the state, citing concerns that residents might be choosing to squander their money in neighboring states where twenty-four-hour casinos are legal, while those who had yet to sell their souls felt that if the rule was keeping even one gambler from resorting to adult diapers then it was probably worth it.

License for ThrillAlderman Pat Dowell is looking to deflate the city’s budget gap with a twenty-five dollar yearly fee for Chicago cyclists. Famously freewheel-ing Mayor Rahm Emanuel has already rolled over the proposal, argu-ing that ad revenues from the newly arrived Divvy bike program will fund expanded lanes. The bike tax suggestion comes amid proposals to double the city’s amusement tax, which would increase the cost of cable TV and raise cigarette taxes by seventy-five cents a pack. The blatant attempt to make fun prohibitively expensive within the city limits gives new meaning to the moniker “The City That Works.” If the City Council continues to play the part of strict parents who have had it up to here with you young man, it can only be a matter of time before Chicagoans face higher taxes on everything from Bears games to slumber parties.

Get SaucedThe humble seed of retired Chicago cop Jim Mullen’s applesauce em-pire was planted in 1996 after a gunshot wound rendered him para-lyzed and jobless. After meeting a nurse with a barbecue sauce com-pany during his stay at Northwestern, he decided to monetize a sauce of his own—or rather, his mother’s. In the years since the first jars of Mullen’s Apple Sauce were sold, over 200 stores in the Chicago area have put it on their shelves. Now Mullen’s pushing ahead with a Kickstarter campaign to bring fourteen more states into the fold of

his fruity fiefdom in just six months. The rewards for participation? Well, fifty dollars gets you a jar of Mullen’s and a magnet, along with an entreaty to “get sauced responsibly,” while a considerably more gen-erous $7,500 gets you four cases of the stuff, a magnet, a jar opener, measuring spoons and a “personalized thank you Skype call with the main man, Jim Mullen.” Mullen needs only about $3,500 to reach his goal of $25,000 and has thirty-three days to do it. If he does, he’ll have earned both enough to meet the upfront production costs for expan-sion as well as the right to ask fate, “Well, how ya like them apples?”

Lou Reed’s Walk on the Chicago SideLou Reed, who passed away this Sunday at the age of seventy-one, has always been known as an “NYC Man.” Reed’s songwriting and antag-onistic personality have always been deeply indebted to the aesthetics of the City That Never Sleeps. Yet the former Velvet Underground frontman also played many legendary shows in the Windy City. The Beechwood Reporter culled together an excellent collection of Lou Reed’s recorded Chi-Town performances, including a blistering 1978 recording of “Rock N’ Roll” played at Lincoln Park’s Park West venue. The entirety of that 1978 concert was recorded on a much sought-after bootleg known as the “Live Park West Chicago 1978” tape. All six-ty-seven glorious minutes of the bootleg have now been made available on YouTube, showcasing some of Reed’s most beloved jams, including “Satellite of Love,” “Walk On The Wild Side,” and “Sweet Jane.” This thoroughly captivating bootleg may now serve as a bittersweet time capsule for the NYC Man’s Chicago fans.

Slow Motion TrainAs the Red Line revamp has some Chicagoans shaving minutes off their ride to and from the loop, new CTA payment system Ventra is working hard to make sure “L” riders still have something to rail against, as commuters report long lines and finicky machines. Ventra has continued to charge ahead, with malfunctioning card readers dou-bling or tripling rider fares, a reminder that swiping cuts both ways. We hope the system will be running smoothly by winter, but if it con-tinues to veer off track, at least commuters will have their rage to keep them warm.

IN THIS ISSueWELcOmE bacK rED LInE “It’s faster than it was, but the Green Line is still better.” jake bittle..............4

frEEDOm DaY, 1963

“The 16mm film shows a world that is harshly divided into black and white.”sharon lurye.........5

nIgHTmarE On 21ST

“A summer camp for adults, where PBR and Sour Punch Straws were served in equal amounts.”emma collins.........5

cUrTIS bLacK qUarTET

“There was a lounge with a piano, and that was the catapult that got us started.”lauren gurley........8

arnE DUncan

“The Common Core is just a bunch of words on paper.”bess cohen..............6

SHacKS anD SHanTIES

“Come out and have a conversation about why this ugly shack is here.”jeanne lieberman.............11

cIrcUIT DES YEUx

“The record’s a lot about escapism, but it’s also about confronting reality.”dove barbanel.....12

mUTED mUraLS

“In the absence of public art, we are reminded of its importance.”amelia dmowska...............13

anIS mOjganI

“The kind of guy who’d thrive in conversations punctuated by moments of awkward silence.”arman sayani........14


A Chicago newcomer—one unfa-miliar with the Dan Ryan Red Line’s history of slowness or with

its recent reconstructions—might have tak-en a ride from the 95th/Dan Ryan station to Chinatown on October 20 and conclud-ed that nothing was out of the ordinary. An experienced rider, however, would have noted that the trip took them only twenty minutes, which, according to the CTA, is a phenomenal twenty-five minutes faster than it was prior to the reconstruction.

During my four round-trips on the renovated Red Line, many people took note of the train’s new speed. Some looked out the windows and seemed surprised to find that semi-trucks were no longer out-pacing us as we rode alongside them.

One such rider, Evelyn, took her headphones out as the train sped from Sox-35th to 47th. She marveled aloud at the smoothness of the ride. “We still on the South Side,” she said, “but it’s much quiet-er, much faster, so it’s kinda nice.”

The CTA has also renovated stations along the Dan Ryan branch with new roofs, TV screens, loudspeakers, pavement, paint, and elevators. The only exception is the 95th/Dan Ryan station, which is the subject of a planned $240 million improve-ment. As it stands, the southern-most stop is not in serious disrepair, but looks shoddy in comparison to the rest of the Red Line’s stations.

“We’re gonna completely renovate and overhaul that station, and make it one of the best transportation hubs you’ve ever seen, anywhere,” enthused Steve May-berry, a jovial CTA spokesperson. I met Mayberry at the Garfield station, where he was distributing CTA literature on the new Red Line South to just about everyone passing through the turnstiles.

While waiting for the trains to come, some riders admired the redone stations as well, scratching their heads or nodding to themselves as they inspected the shiny new screens and new elevators.

“It’s nice, clean, whole new pavement,” said Jason, a rider at the Garfield station. He tapped the pavement beneath him with the heel of his shoe and whistled. “Yep, real nice.”

Valerie, another woman I met during the afternoon rush hour on October 21, was in a hurry to pick up her child from daycare and expressed gratitude for the Red Line’s zippy new pace. “I know the train will get me there,” she said. “I went from 87th to 22nd this morning, and it was twenty minutes faster.”

She still had to worry, however, about whether the 87th Street bus would be on time when she got off the train. “Some buses, the bus tracker doesn’t work, or they show up late,” she said. “That’s very fre-quent on the South Side.”

Other riders also opined that the many

problems with bus routes on the South Side should be addressed by the city. On one ride, I met a group of fifth graders coming home from school: AJ, Bailey, and a mys-terious stoic boy who refused to identify himself as anything other than “X-Man.” When I asked them about public transpor-tation on the South Side, they rattled off a list of buses that needed improvement.

“The 71st Street bus,” said Bailey.“The 79th Street bus,” said AJ.“The 85th Street bus,” said X-Man,

enigmatically. There is no 85th Street bus.Though most riders praised both the

reconstructed track and the replacement buses offered by the CTA during the sum-mer, there were some who remained dis-satisfied.

On my second ride north, I saw a woman named Ebony standing at the door of the train and checking her watch. “It’s faster than it was, but the Green Line is still better,” she complained to me.

Many commuters said that the sub-stitute buses worked fine, but some riders claimed the CTA’s coverage was shoddy and unreliable.

“Ha! the bus,” said a woman at the Cermak-Chinatown stop. She spent five minutes recalling what she said was a host of delays and hassles with the summer replacement buses. She followed me the length and breadth of the station, rattling off the Authority’s failings over the past

few months.Mayberry unleashed upon me a del-

uge of facts in defense of the CTA. He informed me that the 80,000 commuters affected by the construction were provided with “absolutely free, daily, non-stop shut-tles,” in addition to fifty cent discounts on certain bus routes and Red Line trains on Green Line tracks. He paused frequently to ensure that no customer got on the train pamphlet-less.

However, despite Mayberry’s “eighty-seven new loudspeakers” and “10.2 miles of track,” commuters did not seem all that excited about the reopening of the Red Line. After an initial glance out the window to evaluate the train’s perfor-mance, riders returned to playing Bejew-eled or sleeping. The only excitement over the line’s return to the South Side may have occurred last Sunday, when a train began to smoke on account of moving too quickly down the track. Still, the woman who told me about the mishap was quick to offer as-surance that it wasn’t “that big of a deal.”

Improved public transportation on the South Side is an undeniable benefit, but it seemed that regardless of how fast the L goes, this is the general response to renova-tion: it’s not that big of a deal. ¬

The Dan Ryan Red Line makes a quiet return

bY jake bittle

Back on Track

hanna petroski

TRANSIT

october 30, 2013 ¬ South Side WeeklY 5

fILM & vISuAL ARTS

freedom DaybY Sharon lurYe

Nightmare on 21st StreetbY emma collinS

On October 22, 1963, over 200,000 students in Chicago skipped school. They weren’t playing

hooky; they were protesting the inferior education black students received in Chi-cago Public Schools. University of Chicago student Gordon Quinn and his friends de-cided to pick up some film stock left over from another project, ignore the due date on their camera rental, and interview the protestors.

Fifty years later, CPS decided to go through with the largest round of school closings in American history and Quinn decided it was time to put that footage to good use. Quinn’s documentary company, Kartemquin Films, is in the middle of cre-ating a short documentary of the 1963 boy-cott to be shown in classrooms today. Ear-lier this week, on the fiftieth anniversary of the movement known as “Freedom Day,” visitors at the DuSable Museum packed the screening room to catch a twenty-min-ute preview.

The 16mm film shows a world that is harshly divided into black and white. Dr. Timuel Black, speaking at a panel after the screening, said that CPS Superinten-

dent Ben Willis “was brought in with one mission: to bring the schools into com-plete segregation.” If a black school was overcrowded, Willis would keep the spill-overs penned in trailers in the parking lot. In Englewood, some parents lay down in front of bulldozers to prevent these “Willis Wagons” from being built. Inspired by the March on Washington, organizers decid-ed that they needed a citywide boycott of CPS.

Hundreds of thousands of students, parents, and teachers participated. Twen-ty-five thousand students marched peace-fully down Michigan Avenue; at the DuS-able, the audience gasped out loud when they saw the size of the crowd on screen. Earlier, the film had flown over Freedom Day headquarters, where busy volunteers crouched over phones and shouted out the latest statistics: “Forrestville North has eight students in it out of a total of twelve hundred….Fifteen hundred out at the Co-pernicus school….At least fifteen schools have a virtual total boycott.” .

CPS lost $470,000 in a single day. Local headlines read, “225,000 Kids Make Willis Eat Jim Crow.” It took one more

“Freedom Day,” a year later, but Willis was finally fired.

The film showed a crowd filled with youthful energy but adult determination. Toddlers and high schoolers came out, laughing and roughhousing with their friends sometimes, but very sure of why they were there. “Today is Freedom Day!” shouted one boy. The crowd joined in song, sometimes in the style of old spirituals. “Oooooh, freedom,” they sang, “nooooo more school board!”

The names of many of the high-spir-ited students shown in the film, howev-er, have been lost. Though Kartemquin is done with two-thirds of the film, they’re still looking for participants to interview today. Quinn urged audience members to help them find more boycott participants through their website, 63boycott.com. Us-ers can explore a trove of stills from the film, and tag the faces of people they rec-ognize.

If the film’s continued relevance wasn’t already obvious, Kartemquin includ-ed footage of recent protests against the school closings. The chants and slogans are much the same, with “Willis” merely be-

ing replaced by “Emanuel.” After the film, activists from the past and present talked more about the history of Freedom Day, modern problems like the school-to-prison pipeline, and the lessons to be learned from the boycott.

“The movement never comes from the top,” said Rosie Simpson, one of the par-ents who chained themselves to bulldozers. Most of the leadership, she said, was just there to give speeches. The real power came from regular parents and teachers who were mad as hell about what they saw as an inferior education for their children.

Marguerite Mariama-Moore, one of several audience members who had at-tended the boycott, said that listening to the panel made her feel hopeful about the power of collective consciousness. She wondered, though, if today’s generation is “ready to sacrifice” as much as the last gen-eration did.

In the words of one of the teachers interviewed in the film, “The children of Chicago showed the very best of them-selves” that day. If given the chance to learn their own history, students today might just achieve the same. ¬

If it weren’t for the small group of peo-ple shivering in the half-light outside of a brick building in Pilsen, a passer-

by might miss the Roxaboxen art gallery entirely. Beyond the crowd, glass double doors ushered guests into a dimly lit entry-way, illuminated only by the infernal glow of a satanic shrine that sat in the corner of the room. Handwritten paper signs taped haphazardly to the walls invited visitors out of this eerie interstitial space and into a cramped hallway darkened by sheaths of black fabric. But what waited for them be-yond?

“Odd Obsession Presents: Roxabox-en Fourth N Final 24 Hour Horror Film Freak Fest,” put on by Bucktown movie rental shop Odd Obsession, featured twen-ty-four hours of expertly-curated classic and contemporary horror films. Some of the highlights included Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” the chilling 1922 master-

piece “Nosferatu” and the utterly bizarre 1973 film “The Wicker Man.”

Visitors crept down the cramped black hallway into a comparatively large room. The white walls were bare, save for a flick-ering projection that occupied most of the rear wall. People filled almost every inch of available space. They sat in clusters of folding chairs, perched on an assortment of well-loved couches and armchairs, or sprawled on the floor in a sea of sleeping bags.

The event was free and open to anyone who dared pass through the foreboding en-tryway, making for a decidedly diverse au-dience. Teenage hipsters rubbed shoulders with middle-aged movie-buffs. Recent Pilsen transplants mingled with veterans of the neighborhood.

“This was the perfect thing to do to-night,” noted one Pilsen resident. “It’s free, and it’s close to where I live, and they’re

showing lots of great movies.”The atmosphere within the gal-

lery echoed that of a summer camp movie night for adults, where PBR and Sour Punch Straws were served in equal amounts. A sundry assort-ment of semi-strangers gathered in this intimate, casual space. Chuck-ling together at a film’s particular-ly egregious foreshadowing, they achieved comfortable cohesion be-neath the projector’s flickering blue light.

The artists who organized the event used their creative flare to enhance the moviegoers’ experience. They supplement-ed the films’ sound effects with audio of their own, alternating between the tinny, frantic sound of woodwind instruments and a deep, guttural grumble. The chill wind that scythed through the crowd each time someone opened the front door fur-

ther enhanced the drama of the experience. Unfortunately, the future of the 24-

hour film festival is grim. Roxaboxen will permanently close its doors on November 1 and the property will change hands, mean-ing the space will be repurposed. It is only fitting that this unconventional gallery go out with neither a whimper nor a bang, but a blood-curdling scream. ¬


isabel ochoa gold

6 South Side WeeklY ¬ october 30, 2013 6 South Side WeeklY ¬ october 30, 2013

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan liberally sprinkles his points with sports metaphors. It’s his way, it

seems, of constantly alluding to where he started, right here in Hyde Park, playing basketball with local kids when he wasn’t in class at the Lab School or helping at his mother’s afterschool program. Phrases like “getting in the game” and “leveling the playing field” anchor the powerful statistics and big-picture statements to the streets of his constituents, to the streets of his youth.

Duncan returned to Hyde Park last Thursday to appear on a panel with oth-er academics and educators to discuss the Common Core State Standards, a federal

initiative to establish higher learning stan-dards to be implemented by individual states.

He’s quick to remind viewers, listen-ers, assembled teachers, parents, and stu-dents that the United States has dropped from first to twelth in worldwide college graduation rates. He reiterates frequently that a college education is absolutely essen-tial to finding a job these days, and with the announcement of every new initiative, he concedes that there is no single, silver bullet for the problems American schools and students face.

Already adopted in full by forty-five states and the District of Columbia, the

Common Core Standards are supposed to transfer the focus of learning from “breadth” to “depth;” while teachers must cover fewer topics in math and English, they cover the topics more thoroughly, thus raising the bar on what students should know and be assessed on.

For example, a formerly second- or third-grade reading passage is considered appropriate for first graders and kindergar-teners under the Common Core. Where students were once asked to summarize the beginning, middle, and end of the sto-ry, they are now expected to participate in a “collaborative conversation” to “com-pare and contrast” characters’ experiences.

Where old middle school math problems could be solved with arithmetic, the new standards demand the use of algebra.

New standards are no new phenom-enon. Speaking to me on another matter earlier this month, one CPS elementary school teacher said that her school admin-istered thirteen different standardized tests last year.

She compared the situation for teach-ers to the Milgram experiment, a contro-versial study in the 1960s that studied re-sponses to authority figures by leading test subjects to believe that fellow subjects—in actuality, actors hired by the experiment-ers—were being delivered electric shocks

Common Concerns bY beSS cohen

Arne Duncan returns to Chicago

luke white

New standards are no new phenomenon, but Duncan hopes the Common Core will get more students in the game.


eDuCATION


for incorrect answers. “Someone in author-ity is telling us what to do and we just keep doing it,” she said. “When are we going to stop doing this?”

Duncan says that what sets the Com-mon Core apart from past initiatives is “more political will and courage to do this.” Speaking to the press after the panel, he elaborated: “I don’t think any of you have ever seen so many states, so many educa-tion leaders, so many teachers, working so hard together.”

Waivers for the standards set by past federal education initiatives—namely, No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top—were incentives for states to adopt the Common Core. No Child Left Be-hind required that states give and report the results of state-wide standardized tests in order to qualify for federal funding. It did not create the tests, but required that they exist. Race to the Top set up a point system—with financial incentives to the tune of $4.35 billion—to encourage states to adopt new policies.

However, in what Duncan describes as “one of the most insidious things that’s happened in education,” about twenty states “dummied down” testing standards “to make politicians look good,” he be-lieves, under No Child Left Behind. One might also point out, however, the draconi-an punishments meted out to schools that didn’t meet No Child Left Behind’s stan-dards, which demanded an impossible one hundred percent proficiency in reading and math by 2014.

“We were telling kids they were pre-pared to be successful when they weren’t even close,” Duncan said. While for-ty-eight states adopted standards for K-12 education after Race to the Top, some of those—including Illinois—lifted restric-tions on charter school enrollment to more easily meet the standards. The Common Core is not only meant to raise standards, but to keep states and districts accountable.

While the standards have been en-

couraged by the federal government and accepted by states, it will be on districts, schools, and teachers to implement curric-ula and support that will enable students to meet these new, higher standards. As Duncan’s pundit on the panel, Rick Hess, author and the director of education stud-ies at the American Enterprise Institute, put it, “the Common Core is just a bunch of words on paper.”

“Making sure things are legitimate-ly of high caliber, I don’t think that’s the federal role,” Duncan said. “I do think that should be done [by] non-profits, districts, states.”

Unfortunately, as Duncan conceded, implementation, “how we support teachers, and principals, and students themselves, and family members in the hard work of hitting this higher bar,” is the biggest—and least defined—challenge.

CPS began the transition to the Com-mon Core in 2011, with the goal of full im-plementation by the 2014-15 school year. All schools and networks were asked to begin to “unpack” the new standards and develop appropriate lessons and curricula.

Sixty schools actually adopted the standards in 2012 to test run and refine the implementation, and a group of about thirty teachers were selected to develop each of the district’s curricula for math and English. The Office of Instruction set up summer training programs in the summer of 2012 for teachers to make the transition from development to implemen-tation. Today, the Chicago Teachers Union is running workshops on implementing

the Common Core and there are many re-sources and online forums geared toward sharing lesson plans and ideas.

For teachers, new standards require the development of new curricula, new lessons, and preparation for unfamiliar as-sessments. They don’t have time built into the workday for curriculum planning, so it can become work they’re not necessarily paid for. Aligning an entire curriculum to new standards is not an easy or quick task. Often it takes away the time that educators could put towards professional develop-ment or troubleshooting other challenges in the classroom.

For students, the higher standards might mean a rude awakening. Even stu-dents who have met standards in the past may be surprised by lower scores under the new assessments. Still, Duncan disputed the possibility that kids might be discour-aged by the challenge.

“I just left a high school this morn-ing that had a skyrocketing increase in the number of students taking AP classes,” he said. “Same kids, same socioeconomic issues, same whatever, radically different results. Why? Expectations, expectations.”

Duncan insisted that establishing higher standards can only mean greater success for American students. “Every time we raise standards, kids do better,” he said. “The vast majority of kids don’t leave school because it’s too hard, they leave because it’s too easy. They’re bored, they’re not engaged in their own learning.”

When asked by a member of the press how consequences might differ for students unable to

meet the new standards, Duncan corrected her sharply. “You actually used the wrong word. It’s not what ‘consequences,’ it’s what ‘support.’”

If approved, Mayor Emanuel’s pro-posed budget for 2014 will allocate mil-lions to a protected Children’s Fund, to be established with $65-70 million in antici-pated revenue from children’s safety zones.

$11 million of that fund—part of a $36 million, three-year initiative—will be set aside to “provide early education to 5,000 kids,” with full-day pre-kindergar-ten for all city children. Speaking to the press after the panel, Duncan emphasized the necessity of early education programs. They prevent kids from having to “[play] catch up” later on.

Mentioning his own start in education at his mother’s afterschool program, Dun-can also acknowledged the importance of extended services and programs. “We have to do wraparound services, we have to do healthcare clinics, we have to do after-school tutoring, and academic enrichment, mentoring,” he said. The city’s 2014 budget also sets aside $13 million for afterschool programming and proposed around-the-clock tutoring in every library branch around the city.

But these are all plans, and the ball is still up in the air. “There are no guaran-tees in life in anything,” Duncan said. He and other leaders have made the pitch for the Common Core standards; whether it’s a ball or a strike, South Side schools now have to try and make a play. ¬

Every time we raise standards, kids do better. The vast majority

of kids don’t leave school because it’s too hard, they leave because it’s too easy.

8 South Side WeeklY ¬ october 30, 2013 8 South Side WeeklY ¬ october 30, 2013

Keeping TimeCurtis Black, Doug Mitchell, and the longest-running jam

session in Hyde Park

bY lauren gurleY

C urtis Black and Doug Mitchell can’t agree on the exact year when their group began its Sunday night jam ses-sions at Jimmy’s Woodlawn Tap, a Hyde Park bar on 55th

and Woodlawn Avenue. Black, the group’s trumpeter and a free-lance journalist, claims it was 1992. Mitchell, the drummer and an executive editor at the University of Chicago Press, says 1990. Like many other things, this is a matter on which the musical pair has agreed to disagree.

When they start a Sunday night set with “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum,” a Wayne Shorter standard, they play to an audience of two or three, though the group—the Cur-tis Black Quartet—is in the zone. Black and Mitchell are the two long-standing members of the quartet, which generally adheres to what Mitchell calls a “main-stream, neo-classical” repertoire; the bass and guitar positions are often filled by young aspiring musicians, for whom Black and Mitchell serve as mentors.

In the front room at Jimmy’s, laughter flows freely from a table of UofC students chowing down on cheeseburgers and pass-ing around a pitcher of Samuel Adams. A group of older men cheers when the Steel-ers score against the Ravens on TV, and a

group of young women from South Shore sing to a friend who has just turned twen-ty-one. Many are unaware that the Curtis Black Quartet is playing behind the closed door of the bar’s back room.

In the early 1990s, the jazz and night-life scenes in Hyde Park were “in what I guess you would call a trough,” Black claims, saying that Jimmy’s was the chosen venue for the Curtis Black Quartet simply “because it was there,” and nothing else was.

When the prominent Chicago sax-ophonist Hanah Jon Taylor started the quartet, Jimmy’s was the sole jam session venue in Chicago. Today there are several others on the South Side, like the flashier Room 43 in Kenwood, which Mitchell sus-

pects has drawn away some of the Jimmy’s audience.

Over the past two decades, a number of Chicago jazz legends have showed up at Jimmy’s to hear the quartet play. “James Carter, who all by himself could probably blow the roof off several buildings, came to Jimmy’s,” Mitchell says. “And Corey Wil-kes, who’s well-known around Chicago, comes in from time-to-time.” These visits stand out to Black and Mitchell, although they admit that on the average Sunday night things are pretty low-key.

“Jimmy’s is a very quiet and peaceful place mostly,” says Mitchell, a loquacious and solidly built seventy-year-old with a long, frothy gray beard. “A couple fist-fights at Jimmy’s, but it’s not significant,”

he recalls. Both New Yorkers by birth and University of Chicago humanities grad-uates, Curtis Black and Doug Mitchell have old personal ties to the Hyde Park jazz scene, stretching back decades before their jam sessions at Jimmy’s. But the duo never crossed paths until Mitchell joined the quartet, in what he believes was 1991. A woman walking down the alley outside Mitchell’s apartment heard him playing and knocked on his front door, inviting him over to Jimmy’s, where he claims he “scared away the original drummer” with what Black describes as his “tough, upbeat rhythms.”

While Mitchell is gregarious and warm, making himself at home wherever he is, Black is more reserved and obser-

photo by lydia gorham

october 30, 2013 ¬ South Side WeeklY 9october 30, 2013 ¬ South Side WeeklY 9

Keeping Time


jAzz

vant, constantly evaluating his surround-ings, considering and reconsidering his words. Their distinct personalities come through in their relationship on stage. Mitchell takes the spotlight in the upbeat, hard-swinging standards, while Black is at ease with the quieter, moodier pieces. At their first set on Sunday evening, the en-ergy shifts between the two men as the rhythms oscillate between slow and fast.

“There’s a creative tension between Doug and me,” Black says, chuckling. “I like stuff a little quieter, but what that’s done is really push me to play the trumpet better.”

Mitchell attests to the differenc-es as well. “I tend to play assertively,” he says. “That room at Jimmy’s has very live-ly acoustics, a little too lively, and Curtis does not play a loud trumpet. You have to accommodate. There’s always a little tension involved.”

Both men have seen Hyde Park undergo significant changes as a hub for musicians, mostly reflecting the University’s long-evolving policy toward nightclubs and liquor licens-es in Hyde Park. Black grew up in a suburb of New York City listening to his father’s jazz records and taking trumpet lessons, and when he arrived at the University of Chicago in 1975 to study English the neighborhood was just coming out of a period of urban renewal and artistic and mu-sical demolition. At the UofC, Black reported on urban renewal for the Chicago Maroon’s Orientation issue.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the stretch of 55th that runs from Wash-ington Park to the lake was over-flowing with nightclubs and lounges, but in the subsequent decades the strip was torn down and replaced by low-rise buildings—such as the one Jimmy’s now occupies.

“There was concern about property values because lots of black people were moving in, and so they turned it into this sort of postmodern dead zone,” Black says. “And so they still had this very controlling attitude of keeping outsiders out.” Yet Black, who in the seventies was passionate about jazz musicians like Miles Davis and Freddy Harvard, found his musical niche, playing at jam sessions at the old Valhalla lounge in the Hyde Park Bank building on 53rd Street.

As an undergraduate, Black became interested in Chicago politics and grass-roots community action. Besides his ur-ban renewal reporting for the Maroon,

he covered housing issues and memorably interviewed Cesar Chavez in his car after a lettuce strike on campus. In the years fol-lowing his graduation, Black has written about Chicago politics for a smattering of citywide and national publications. He also founded Newstips, a grassroots Chicago news service which covers Chicagoans who are working to fight social injustice.

Over coffee at Salonica, Black spoke in a low, hushed voice and with a nervous energy as his eyes darted around the room and he shifted in the booth. For Black, jazz and journalism do not intersect, but work to fulfill him in different ways. “You know, with words you express something very specific—that’s why you use words—but with music [you] express something that can’t be put into words.”

For Mitchell, who arrived in Hyde

Park in 1961, a dozen years before Black, it was the “very lively jam sessions” at the South Lounge in the University of Chi-cago’s Reynolds Club that initiated him into the Hyde Park music scene. There he jammed with big names like Wilbur Ware, Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, and Donald Garrett. “There was a lounge with a piano,” said Mitchell, “and that was the catapult that got us started.”

As an eleven-year-old in the north-ern suburb of Winnetka, Mitchell claims he locked himself into his parents’ attic with a drum set and began training him-self in both classical and jazz traditions, and didn’t quit until he was good enough to be recruited as the first student conduc-tor of the Chicago Youth Symphony. He turned down the offer in order to come to the UofC, but soon found himself listening

in on the likes of jazz legend Dexter Gor-don on the tenth floor of his Pierce Tower dormitory.

Mitchell’s interests in jazz are not un-related to his love for books and his job at the Press as executive editor on sexuality studies, rhetoric, history, and sociology. “I prescribe to the notion that the pre-ratio-nal intuitive processes that I use in mak-ing music and finding writers are similar. Creative skimming is what I think of as a jazz process,” says Mitchell, alternating be-tween a cup of hot chocolate and a double espresso at the Medici.

Like Black, Mitchell is a communi-ty organizer, but he runs in less political and more artistic and academic circles. He often brings visiting writers and academ-ics from the Press to Jimmy’s on Sundays. “The place has a physical function, but it’s

also a cultural institution.” Besides being a walking encyclope-

dia of Hyde Park history, visual art, and music—the booth we sat in at the Med, he told me, was Saul Bellow’s favorite—Mitchell takes pride in bringing together “folks” of different backgrounds, especially musicians and scholars at Jimmy’s. In 2007, he worked with trombonist and Columbia University music professor George Lewis to publish “A Power Stronger Than Itself,” a 700-page volume on experimental music and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).

Mitchell’s is a family of artists. His wife, the artist Christine Mitchell, had a solo exhibition at the Hyde Park Art Cen-ter in 2011. And his son, Wyatt Mitchell, who died in 2004, was a graffiti artist and a founding member of the legendary South

Side hip-hop group Stony Island. One of his murals is on the alley-side wall of the FedEx–Kinko’s on 57th Street.

Although there was a dearth of jazz opportunities in Hyde Park when the Cur-tis Black Quartet began, Black and Mitch-ell believe the future of Hyde Park jazz is looking up with the University’s recent ef-forts to bring the arts into the community at new, state-of-the-art venues like the Lo-gan Center and the Arts Incubator.

“The University’s changed a lot since its post–urban renewal attitude,” Black says. “They didn’t want much in the way of entertainment going on in the neighbor-hood and now they’ve really done a 180 on that, which is a good thing.”

Mitchell agrees, but is somewhat skeptical about the forces behind the re-cent outpour of money. “The arts are now

visible. They used to be invisible,” he says. “The building orgy that has been going on for the last few years. I don’t know what to make of it...peo-ple from my generation are a little bit skeptical about razzle-dazzle and bling and all that.” On that recent Sunday night, the band breaks after playing “I’ve Never Been in Love Before” from “Guys and Dolls,” and two sit-in trumpet players arrive for the second set. Mitchell sits chatting with friends at a table by the stage, and Black wanders around the room with a beer in hand.

“We enjoy having younger mu-sicians come and it’s gratifying to watch them develop over the years and in some cases become really good,” Black says. Lester Ang, who received his bachelor’s degree in sta-

tistics from the University of Chicago last year, is prepping his instrument. “As a stu-dent, I had lots of mutual friends who came to Jimmy’s and they got me to come,” Ang says. He’s been playing on Sundays for the last two years.

The group finishes their drinks and Black and Mitchell gesture toward the ea-ger newcomers that it is time to start back up. They jump in with “What is This Thing Called Love?” A growing thunder rises from Mitchell’s drum set at the back of the stage. Up front, Black’s trumpet wails out softly. There is tension here and it’s work-ing. ¬

You know, with words you express something very specific—that’s why you use words—but with music [you] express something that can’t be put

into words.


vISuAL ARTS

Conversation Pieces

What’s an ugly shack got to do with public art?

bY jeanne lieberman

At the northwest corner of the in-tersection between 71st Street and East End Avenue stands a wooden

structure, a shack—something less akin to a building than an overgrown wooden crate marked with a modernist interpreta-tion of tribal designs. The walls are cobbled together from boards, some newly painted pastel yellow, others black, with mahogany and aged pine planks filling in the gaps. The roof falls about four inches short of covering the whole floor on the southern side, leaving something to be desired for anyone who might come to the shack look-ing for protection from the elements. But as one neighborhood resident put it, “some-times you just need a place to cry,” and as a personal refuge and a social catalyst the shack may appear oddly placed, but it is well equipped.

The artist responsible for this project, aptly titled “Shacks and Shanties,” is UIC professor Faheem Majeed. He chuckles cheerfully as he recounts that some carpen-ters passing by for the first time considered it an artist’s misadventure in the trade of constructing inhabitable spaces. Majeed is not focused on his creations as ends in and of themselves—they are not autonomous

art objects, nor is “Shacks and Shanties” a neighborhood beautification project. But it is a neighborhood improvement project of sorts. “The idea is that the shack is tem-porary…what’s sustainable is the relation-ships. So it’s like, temporary structures creating sustainable networks and relation-ships.”

All summer and into autumn the two shacks, one in Bronzeville and one in South Shore, have functioned as pop-up galleries, with a steady and highly varied stream of artists staging exhibitions and performances on these formerly-deserted lots. All have excitedly embraced the lim-itations and new possibilities that come with this attempt to create art within walls that belong to neither museum nor gallery. Artist Amanda Williams spread a line of bright yellow paint across the 71st Street lot over the uneven stubbly grass, jumping at the chance to make an artistic statement about Safe Passage in a medium that has a larger reach within the South Shore audi-ence than almost any canvas.

And as the clouds threaten rain on an October afternoon, an elementary school boy in a puffy purple jacket spontaneous-ly performs with the painting. Quibbling

with his older sister and rejecting her hand, he struts confidently alone down that line across the lot. Its floor of barley-brown and grayed periwinkle boards sits above the ground on cinder blocks, making the 71st Street shack a platform in both the literal and figurative sense.

Majeed is fully aware of this function. He describes the shacks as the manifesta-tion of his desire to bring together his work as an artist and a curator. “A lot of my art is still about making, but it’s about mak-ing platforms…I am always thinking about how I can fuse together interesting indi-viduals to do things in a public space where maybe there wasn’t one already. Which is why I decided to move into the vacant lots.”

The Bronzeville shack that Majeed erected on 48th Street currently houses an exhibition of work by local artist Liz Mares. Like the shacks themselves, her medium is recycled materials, colored by a history of human use. Paper placards an-nouncing the importance of human impact on the water supply are wrinkled and bear stains from recent rains, almost obscuring their statements. But the paper and cloth-filled plastic bottles that populate the shack are positioned to draw an observer into a

confrontational interaction with the pub-lic. Just inside the door they compete with visitors’ feet for space at every step, and Mares is delighted to find that the instal-lation’s parts have been knocked over and displaced.

The focus of “Shacks and Shanties” on giving new life to everyday materials is perfectly integrated with the story of the shacks themselves, further blurring the line between art and functional space. “The shacks are made of recycled materi-als, found materials from dumpsters in the neighborhoods that I’m in. And the idea is that the shack will eventually go back into the dumpster,” Majeed says. “The idea [is that] we are working in shacks now, and then we are going to throw the shacks away, and then we are going to do something else next summer, or the next summer.”

He goes on to explain that success lies neither in the masterful technical ex-ecution nor unprecedented ingenuity that might get a piece into a museum. Instead, Majeed says he’s interested in getting peo-ple to come out and “have a conversation about why this ugly shack is here.” ¬

jeanne lieberman

A temporary shelter at 71st and East End.


MuSIC

Lightbulb SongsCircuit des Yeux’s “Overdue”bY dove barbanel

“I remember when I was in second grade I had this vision of me being a busi-

nesswoman—I’m going to grow up and be an adult and wear a pantsuit and carry a briefcase,” says Little Village-based musician Haley Fohr. “I didn’t realize there were other ways to do it.”

Four albums later, the twenty-four-year-old singer and guitarist behind Circuit Des Yeux has proved that yes, there is another way of do-ing it. On October 29 she released “Overdue” (four weeks late, ap-propriately enough), her latest and most polished effort, as well as her first recorded work since graduating from Indiana University and mov-ing to Chicago.

Circuit Des Yeux’s music re-flects Fohr’s determination to live on her own terms—her songs are haunting, difficult, and extremely personal. “Overdue” is no different. Fohr even built her own temporary studio from scratch to have com-plete control over its recording. A cohesive collection of jangly twelve-string guitar riffs, multilayered electronic feedback, and synthetic string orchestras, the record places Fohr’s captivating vocals front and center. Her voice moves from deep and melancholy on songs like “Litho-nia” and “My Name Is Rune” to a fright-ening chant on “Acarina” before slipping into Patti Smith-like intensity with growls of “I want out! I want out! I want out!” on “I Am.”

The songs were all written within months of Fohr’s arrival in Chicago, and this transition played a formative role in shaping their content.

“Moving to Chicago was a struggle and I think post-college [life] in Ameri-ca is kind of a daunting thing, especially with the economy the way it is,” Haley says over cups of stovetop espresso. “When you move someplace new and every habit that you have and ritual you have is thrown out the window, it’s a scary place to be. I felt

like I was kind of floating in thin air, and I didn’t have anyone to call and no one to check up on me. It’s liberating but it’s also kind of scary.”

Fohr now shares her old two-story wooden house in Little Village with three other roommates. The space is filled out with a gas furnace, a backyard sauna, and a small office for selling records and mer-chandise. Fohr insists that after a year in Chicago she’s now taken root and is com-fortable with her situation. When she first wrote the songs on “Overdue,” however, she was still moving between small, dirt-cheap apartments in Pilsen and Little Vil-lage, with few social contacts and two jobs in addition to her musical endeavors.

Like many young artists, some of whom were quickly moving to the same neighborhoods as she was, her creative am-bitions were put to the test.

“The record’s a lot about escapism, but it’s also about confronting reality,” Fohr

says. “I realize I can’t create my own reality, that we’re all living in the same world, but I can offer maybe a different lens on reality, and a lot of the things I’m going through everyone is going through or a lot of people have.”

Her goal, she says, is to express these lightbulbs of memories in her songs in a way that her audience can catch on to. While her approach to this in her mu-sic has always been insular and lonely, on her newest record her perspective was also strongly influenced by the immense diver-sity and culture she found surrounding her on the South Side.

“The little things that people do in ev-eryday life really were just eye-opening to me. Just watching people, how hard it is to get by for some, me included, and a lot of people have it worse than I do. But it’s like paying the bills and getting groceries and trying to raise a family,” Fohr says. “[The record] was extremely influenced by the

South Side. That’s where it was re-corded, that’s where I had these ideas floating through my head.”

Coming from the green bubble of Bloomington, Indiana, where the environment can be stifling but “it’s almost too easy to live,” the transi-tion to Chicago was a shock. It was also another opportunity for Fohr to do things her own way.

After finally finding her place in Little Village, Fohr explored new-found freedom during the recording process for “Overdue.” Last Febru-ary, with little equipment or support from a record label, nor much in-terest in anything but a lo-fi sound, she built a studio from scratch with Cooper Crain of the bands Cave and Bitchin Bajas. Though the space was dismantled in May after the record was completed, she recounts the leg-end of the construction of U.S.A. Studios with pride.

“[Crain] was the owner of this studio selling their tape machine and it’s 1,200 bucks, and I was like, I can’t freaking afford [spending] 1,200 bucks.” Using the insurance

check she received after her gear was sto-len from her car, however, they managed to split the cost. Then she bought a mic preamp with a sixty-day refund policy, instantly giving them a deadline for lay-ing down the album’s basic tracks, which they would meet with only hours to spare. A friend volunteered to rent his apartment for cheap as a studio space, and after sound treating with old clothes, a quilt, and even a few avocado shells, U.S.A. Studios was born.

“It was kind of a sacred space, because we built it with our own hands,” Fohr says. “I do want to do music as my career, and I want to do it on my own terms. I just nev-er realized how difficult it is, because there are people who have an idea of how to do things and they’re going to put their fin-gerprints on it as well. This may sound nar-cissistic or even maniacal or something but I just can’t. I gotta do it for me.” ¬

julia dratel

Little Village musican Haley Fohr’s fourth album is “a lot about escapism, but it’s also about confronting reality.”


vISuAL ARTS

A day without public art in Pilsen

bY amelia dmoWSka

The entrance to Casa Aztlan, a community center in Pilsen that provides support services for vic-

tims of prejudice, poverty, and social vio-lence, is adorned with intricate depictions of prominent Mexican historical figures. At around 3pm this past Saturday, howev-er, a group of people clad in all-white paint suits were taping long sheets of black paper over the beautiful images, fighting against the gusty Chicago wind that ripped at their hair and clothing. Casa Aztlan was their penultimate stop in a successful implemen-tation of the first-ever Day Without Public Art in Pilsen.

On a typical day, a stroll through the neighborhood’s streets is like walking through an outdoor art gallery, with the sides of buildings and exposed brick walls serving as expansive canvases. Unlike a gallery exhibition, though, Pilsen’s murals act as a constantly-expanding museum of the neighborhood’s cultural history. The murals’ bright hues weave an intricate web of old Mexican narratives, heated political disputes, and modern immigrant tales. The illustrations on the buildings document the lives of those who bustle daily through the streets. Rather than passive sentries that simply stand watch over people, the murals serve as a source of reflection on Pilsen’s identity.

Now imagine an alternate universe where those walls are desolate—brick, bare and colorless. For locals used to the bright-hued backdrop, it was shocking to find this alternate universe briefly become a reality. Passersby often stopped to more closely examine the obscured murals, the edges of which barely peaked out behind the drapes of black paper. A simple white stamp was the only interruption over endless sheaths of black: a cheeky logo of a mustachioed man in a French beret pulling drapes with the words “Sorry for the inconvenience” laid over artwork.

“In the absence of public art, we are reminded of its importance. We affirm the significance of the grassroots artists and activists who have transformed the build-ings and helped shape the community,” explained the project’s leader, Art Institute

faculty member Nicole Marroquin. “It’s a similar idea to how Catholics shroud cru-cifixes and statues during Lent in order to solely focus on the ideas and beliefs they represent.”

A year ago, Marroquin and a group of fellow artists and art-lovers won a grant from the Propeller Fund to finance the project. Since then, she has been recruit-ing volunteers and reaching out to property owners for permission to cover the murals on their buildings. In total, about forty-five people—ranging from artists, youths, local residents, and muralists—have contrib-uted to the project so far. Bianca Diaz, a recent graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design who grew up in Pilsen, read an article about the project online and then emailed Marroquin to get involved. “So

often, we take all of this beautiful art for granted,” she says. “This is a reminder of how much we should appreciate it.”

Community members, including the majority of local artists, storeowners, and long-term residents, have seemed to em-brace the project wholeheartedly. Enrique Salcido, manager of Benny’s Pizza, gave them permission to cover the mural that has been on the side of his pizza shop for six years. The mural depicts a scene from an old love story, in which a man mourns the loss of his lover. “The mural is a cultural artifact that speaks to Mexican people and leads to the growth of the community,” he said.

Although the drapes covered the mu-rals for only one day, Marroquin hopes to spark a lasting discussion among members

of the community. She intends to reinforce that by hosting a series of public workshops in the upcoming months, where she will discuss the importance of both supporting the emerging art of Pilsen and preserving the established character of the artistic community.

“The identity of a place is intricate-ly linked to art,” says Marroquin. “When things start to change, when we hide the murals, people become concerned. They speak up. They ask questions.” ¬

Muted Murals

camden bauchner


SCReeN & STAGe

Anis Mojgani is infectious. Here I sit, desperately trying to produce one cool, clinical line to capture

the essence of his work and all that comes to mind is a stream of seemingly unrelat-ed, but equally evocative images: a sparrow feeding its kin a trembling but seemingly reconciled worm, a long-abandoned beer can rustling away to the rhythms of the wind, long lost lovers narrowly missing one another at a crowded train station. And watching Mojgani perform is like listen-ing to “Pet Sounds” in the dark or read-ing Nabokov for the first time—wondrous, crippling, and utterly impossible to shake off.

Bookended by a series of audience-led performances rooted in subjects ranging from the joys of Nintendo to the perseverant beauty of a poverty- and violence-strick-en Baltimore, Mojgani’s set served as the first feature of the year for Catcher in the Rhyme, the UofC’s spoken-word poetry gathering. He began with “Come Clos-er,” a celebration of intimacy delivered in lilting, almost hypnotic tones, urging au-dience members to give themselves up—to the poet and, more importantly, to them-selves. “I want to say that elements of it came from wanting to convey to others that they are of worth. The idea of someone living their whole life without a single per-son revealing to them how beautiful they actually are,” Mojgani says of the poem on his website. Performative poetry, espe-cially spoken word of this kind, might risk coming off as saccharine, more self-serving than purely intended; but scratchy-voiced, twinkle-eyed Mojgani preempted any such notions with a performance that bled sin-cerity and an almost saint-like affection for strangers.

“Come Closer” was followed by “Di-rect Orders (Rock Out),” a snarling call to order, not unlike something a timid au-dience might hear from Jagger or Bowie: “Rock out like the plane is going down, there are 120 people on board, and 121

parachutes / Rock out like the streets and the books are all on fire and the only way it can be extinguished is by doin’ the electric slide.” Much in keeping with the traditions of his fellow rock stars, Mojgani peeled off his shirt at the end of the performance: “It’s hot in here,” he whispered, smirking at the catcalling and whistle-blowing that ensued.

Mojgani is the kind of guy who’d thrive in conversations punctuated by mo-ments of awkward silence. The moments between his poems were often the funniest and most memorable: a little quip about the “sweet dowry” that he received upon marrying his wife; an anecdote about his gastrointestinal escapades; a profession of his love of biscuits. Every interjection displayed a rare brand of humor that suc-ceeded in making the controversial trivial and hilarious and the banal meaningful, putting it into a perspective that was both universal and intensely personal.

A native of New Orleans, Mojgani is the son of an Iranian father, who immi-grated to the United States to study engi-neering, and an African American mother, who spent her youth vacillating back and forth between New Orleans and Mississip-pi. While he does attribute a seminal role to these rich cultural backgrounds—both are strongly embedded in the history of the oral tradition—in his development as both a visual artist and a poet of the spo-ken word, he sees his parents themselves as the more tangible influence on his work. “[They] thankfully recognized the im-portance of art and thus it was something present in the rearing of us, and any en-deavor by us with creativity was heavily supported.” An account of this upbringing was conjured up in an untitled work char-acterized by dreamy, almost childlike rec-ollections of the past.

Mojgani dedicated his next two po-ems, “Biscuits and My Wife” and “This Is How She Makes Me Feel,” to his betrothed, a woman he described, rather adorably, as

“trifling.” The biscuits poem, a fortunate byproduct of an April Fools’ Day gaffe on the part of Write Bloody Publishing, res-urrected a centuries-old debate catalogu-ing the relative merits of baked goods over one’s beloved. “This Is How She Makes Me Feel” was a love-struck, swoon-inducing paean to the woman who makes him feel “like honey and trombones.” It goes with-out saying that, afterward, everyone in the room kind of wanted Anis Mojgani.

It was with “Shake the Dust”, his most celebrated piece, that he brought his set to a close. According to the New Testament, groups of Jewish people would shake the dust from their feet upon leaving Gentile cities, to symbolize a separation from the Gentile ways and an acceptance of the

Messiah. “Shake the Dust,” written be-tween 1998 and 2000 and inspired largely by Baha’i writings, certainly had Mojgani at his most prophetic. “Make sure that by the time the fisherman returns you are gone, because just like the days, I burn at both ends and every time I write, every time I open my eyes, I am cutting out parts of myself just to give them to you,” he called out, as audience members snapped along. If the post-performance chatter is to be be-lieved, one might easily mistake Mojgani for the leader of a spiritual movement, de-voted to spreading his messages about hu-mility, a celebration of the self, and most importantly, a love for and an acceptance of others. Consider me a convert. ¬

A Performance of SainthoodbY arman SaYani

sara lu

Mojgani is the kind of guy who’d thrive in conversations punctuated by momentsof awkward silence.

Anis Mojgani at Logan


vISuAL ARTS

Collateral DamageCollateral damage—it is an abstraction of physical and emotional hurt, conjuring images of something irrevocably lost. In this solo exhibit introducing drawings and mixed media works, Kathy Weaver addresses the suffering imposed on citizens by the tumult and destruction of war. In one work, humans with metallic square bodies and heads can be seen grabbing, kicking, and spewing blood at each other while a little girl calls for help. The exhibition forces viewers to consider the inescapable torment that war brings, often most severely affecting the innocent, and the fight of citizens to reclaim what war has taken away. Catch a glimpse of what this unique form of art has to offer as a social criticism on war. Bridgeport Art Center, 1200 W. 35th St. Through Novem-ber 4. Monday-Saturday, 8am-6pm. Free. (773)247-3000. bridgeportart.com (Angela Moon)

Tools of the TradeThere’s plenty of anti-establishment conceptual art out there, but Lindsay Olson’s “Tools of the Trade: A Resident’s View of Law Enforcement” is the exact opposite. Having served as artist in residence for the Oak Park Police Department from 2008-12, Olson worked to create a collection of multimedia conceptual art that captured the real “tools of the trade” in law enforcement: handcuffs, of course, but also ballpoint pens and a lot of written text. The collection asserts that all members of the force, whether behind the wheel of a patrol car or behind a desk at headquarters, deserve to be recog-nized and appreciated for their efforts in keeping Chicago safe. This traveling exhibition will be at the Beverly Arts Center for a limited time, so hurry over there—and maybe leave the contraband at home. Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St. November 1-December 1. Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm; Saturday, 9am-5pm; Sunday, 1pm-4pm. Free. (773)445-3838. beverlyartscenter.org (Katryce Lassle)

Street of DreamsIf a band of rogue street artists were set loose in London’s National Portrait Gallery, the result would likely resemble the works of Eddwin Meyers in his exhibition “Street of Dreams.” Meyers scrawls provocative, colorful messages across paintings that depict historical subject matter in a decidedly traditional style. This unlikely coupling explores the interplay of past and present and examines the role of modern individuals in the perpetually unfolding American sociopolitical narrative. Meyers’s work also attempts to uproot commonly held perceptions of society, begging for a reevaluation of American culture and the deeply ingrained social and political “truths” that many take for granted. He accomplishes this in a way that is at once humorous and dynamic. For a taste of art that invites raucous political and social discourse infused with a pointed sense of humor, don’t miss “Street of Dreams.” 33 Contemporary Gallery, 1029 W. 35th St. Through November 14. Monday-Sunday, 10am-5pm. Free. (708)837-4534. 33collective.com (Emma Collins)

(cohesion)For your regular dose of meta-art, take a trip to Zhou B Art Center’s newest exhibition, “(cohesion).” A handful of artists have come together to present a collection of multimedia works about making things come together. From mixing paints and crossing mediums to the synergistic nature of the exhibition itself, “(cohesion)” is a seemingly infinite concep-tual tongue twister. An exploration in building larger works and concepts by gathering from every aspect of the artists’ talents—from tried-and-true techniques to forays into experimentation—“(cohesion)” promises to melt your brain with an endless pattern of small particles coming together to produce things larger than themselves. But that’s only if you think too hard about it. Zhou B Art Center, 1029 W. 35th St. November 15-January 12. 10am-5pm. Free. (773)523-0200. zhoubartcenter.com (Katryce Lassle)

The endangered Species “Beautiful, but without hope,” is Raub Welch’s assessment of “the vanishing black man in America.” Through looming three-dimensional collages, Welch takes on the task of redirecting society’s perception of the black man, one he sees as all too often linked with aggression, simplicity, and thoughtlessness. Above all, he seeks to identify a notion of beauty with the black male subject. Within this framework, Welch tackles themes of masculinity, sexuality, slavery, mental poverty, and, finally, futility. To span these nuances of beauty, Welch turns to collage and pairs portraits of male models with images of nature, Christianity, human anatomy, text, and “relics” of black culture. But the show’s ominous title begs the question: is this simply an elaborate farewell to

the beautiful black man, or is there hope after all? DuSable Museum, 740 E. 56th Pl. Through March 30. Tuesday-Saturday, 10am–5pm; Sunday, noon-5pm. Free-$10. (773)947-0600. dusablemuseum.org (Sasha Tycko)

STAGe & SCReeN

Anna, in the DarknessThose who like to leave the hall light on at night might want to avoid Dream Theatre Company’s newest horror. “Anna, in the Darkness” sheds only shards of light on its title character, a young special education teacher played by Megan Merrill. The one-woman show keeps tension piqued, casting the stage’s only face in the digital glow of a cell phone or the flicker of a candle. House playwright Jeremy Menekseoglu’s chiller was performed in 2012 as well, and the consensus is that it’s a fully adult Halloween scare. Anna remains trapped in her house, hunted by a town outside, her guilt or innocence kept carefully ambiguous. The play’s a good bet for anyone who likes a little psycho with their thriller. This house is definitely haunted; the only question is by whom. Dream Theatre Company, 556 W. 18th St. October 30-November 2, 9:30pm. $13-$18. (773)552-8616 dreamtheatrecompany.com (Hannah Nyhart)

If Scrooge Was a BrotherThe boisterous musical is an indispensable Christmas tradi-tion, every bit as important as drunken renditions of Mariah Carey standards, knickknacks from the Lincoln Park Zoo, or those worried dads who crowd the aisles of the American Girl Doll and Disney stores around Water Tower Place every December. But a lot of the holiday season falls outside the frame of that Christmas-card-classic homogeneity, and some traditions can take an update. At eta, “If Scrooge Was a Brother” remixes Dickens’ 170-year-old story for a new kind of classic. From October 31, see Ebeneezer Scrooge as he tries to come to terms with his race and the Christmas spirit, soundtracked by hip-hop renditions of “Joy to the World.” eta Creative Arts Foundation, 7558 S. South Chicago Ave. October 31-December 29. See site for prices and showtimes. (773)752-3955. etacreativearts.org (Patrick Leow)

Play as InquiryThis weekend, experimental artists and scholars from New York to Montreal descend on the Gray Center Lab for some serious play. A series of workshops and presentations aim to explore the far-reaching potential of play, pushing past its childish connotations to see what else the form has to teach. The conference makes playing fields of everything from game design to public health, with varied degrees of audience par-ticipation. UofC professor Patrick Jagoda hosts the weekend in collaboration with Montreal creative collective Alkemie Atelier, and artist and academic Sha Xin Wei. As the finale of a yearlong artistic and academic partnership, it promises revelations amidst installations. Gray Center Lab, 929 E. 60th St. November 1-3. Schedule online. RSVP requested. (773)834-1936. graycenter.uchicago.edu (Hannah Nyhart)

Topsy Turvy TalesIn one South Side venue this weekend, the films will be as short as the crowd. “Topsy Turvy Tales” at Logan Center for the Arts acts as an offshoot of the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival. The showing promises all of the grit and fringe content of your typical filmfest, with shorts exploring everything from the fierce love of a mother, (“Blue Wonder,” from children’s TV show Guess How Much I Love You) to narratives of modern displacement (“Hedgehogs and the City”). The movies hail from four different continents, and Logan will accompany the offerings with a series of free workshops for children. This is the thirtieth iteration of the CICFF, which makes it four to six times as old as the tales’ target audience. Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Saturday, November 2, 2pm-3pm. $6-$9. (773)702-2787. arts.uchicago.edu (Hannah Nyhart)

Siren of the TropicsDancer, actress, all-around star Josephine Baker steals the show in her 1927 feature-film debut, “Siren of the Tropics.” The film tells the tale of Papitou, a young woman in the Pa-risian Antilles who falls in love with a visiting engineer and follows him back to Paris, not knowing that he is engaged to another and that his business in the Antilles was all part of a devious plot. Baker’s magnetic stage presence and high-en-ergy dance moves lend the silent film its rhythm, but they’ll be bolstered by a new soundtrack. This screening is part of Black Cinema House and Experimental Sound Studio’s Experimental Sound Series, which provides accompaniment in the form of live jazz music, composed and improvised, unique to each film. This showing’s musicians are trumpet

player Aymeric Avice and drummer Benjamin Sanz. Black Cinema House, 6901 S. Dorchester Ave. Saturday, November 2, 6pm. Free. RSVP online. blackcinemahouse.org (Bailey Zweifel)

MuSIC

Nineties Halloween jam feat. Slick RickThe Shrine has long established itself as the place to be if you’re into golden era hip-hop, and already this month the South Side venue has opened its doors to old-school legends like EPMD, KRS-One and Rakim. On November 1, how-ever, The Shrine will be going all out with a capstone event in the growing trend of rap nostalgia: they will be hosting an all-night Halloween celebration of all things nineties. The event will be headlined by none other than the king of hip-hop storytellers, Slick Rick. Rick the Ruler, who has always known for having one of the most theatrical styles in hip-hop—sporting an eye patch and heavy golden chains while delivering rhymes in a lyrical Jamaican-British patois—is a fitting host for the event. The Shrine will also be staging a $500 prize costume contest, which any swagged-out patron of the event is eligible to win. The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Friday, November 1, 9pm. 21+. (312)753-5700.theshrinechicago.com (Zach Goldhammer)

Xavier Breaker CoalitionWashington Park Arts Incubator artist-in-residence Tomeka Reid continues to bring an impressive roster of jazz artists to the Incubator with the next installment of her monthly First Mondays Jazz Series. This month, Reid has invited Xavier Breaker, South Carolina–born jazz drummer extraordi-naire, to take the stage in Washington Park. Breaker has been playing the drums since the age of five and honed his chops while studying jazz at Northern Illinois University. His group, The Xavier Breaker Coalition, is particularly noted for its stylistic diversity and flexibility, blending a wide range of genres into an electrifying mix of high-energy jazz. Breaker’s crew has been steadily gigging its way across Chicago and has maintained a regular Thursday night set at Andy’s Jazz Club in River North. Check out the Coalition show this Monday and, if you’re a fan, follow Breaker’s Twit-ter account for more info about future gigs. Washington Park Arts Incubator, 301 E. Garfield Boulevard. Monday, November 4, 6:30pm-9pm. Free. (773)702-9724. arts.uchicago.edu (Zach Goldhammer)

It’s Too funky In Here“OOH! Ooo uh OW! TOO FUNKY IN HE’E!!! ow! GIMME SOME AIR! too-wooooooo funky in he’e! gimme some AAAAAAAAIR!! open up the WINDOW, MAN! TOO FUN-KAY! SAY IT! Gimme some aaaaaaaaaai’! toooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fun-kay ...in he’e! —Lyrics to James Brown’s “It’s Too Funky In Here” (re-leased May 1979)This was the first half of the press release for an event at the Italian “neighborhood joint” Three Aces, advertising a two-night funk DJ set at the restaurant. The other half of the press kit will inform you that DJ Joe Mama is actually Joe Bryl, whom the Trib once named “Chicago’s Most Interesting DJ.” At the age of fifty-nine, Bryl is now also one of the oldest DJs still working in Chicago and has served

as the musical mastermind behind some of the city’s most prominent clubs and bars, including the Funky Buddha Lounge, Sonotheque, the Shrine, and Maria’s Packaged Goods. The question remains, though: is an Italian bistro really the place to find funk in Chicago? If anyone can make it work, Joe “Mama” Bryl probably can. Three Aces, 1321 W. Taylor St. Friday, November 8, 9pm-2am. (312)423-1321. (Zach Goldhammer)

Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, Camp Lo and RhymefestNext month, two of the greatest rap duos of all time—Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth and Camp Lo—will be reuniting at the Shrine. Both groups were legendary for their top-notch production, with tracks produced by Pete Rock (a.k.a. Soul Brother #1, a.k.a. Chocolate Boy Wonder) and Ski Beats, respectively. Both groups also produced some of the greatest gems of early nineties hip-hop, with Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth’s “T.R.O.Y. (They Reminisce Over You)” and Camp Lo’s “Luchini” representing two decade-defining jams. Top it all off with a Chicago twist, these New York superstars will be joined at the Shrine by everybody’s favorite former 20th Ward alderman candidate/rapper, Che “Rhymefest” Smith. The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Friday, November 8, 9pm. 21+. (312)753-5700. theshrinechicago.com (Zach Goldhammer)

eclectic LadylandJoe Bryl is back at it again. This week he will be spinning a show at Maria’s in tribute to the music of another Mid-western music mecca: Detroit. The eclectic playlist will be hopscotching between the Motor City’s electronic genres, showcasing the finest in techno, house, and electric soul. The set is also a celebration of “In The Dark: Detroit Is Back,” a new compilation from Still Music. The Chicago-based label became renowned in 2004 for its release of various Detroit electronic pioneers, including J Dilla’s famed friend and mentor, Amp Fiddler. Bryl will be joined by Still Music’s founder and resident DJ, Jerome Derradji, who will be de-buting tracks from the label’s release. The set will hopefully build upon a long-standing exchange between these two cities and their shared legacies of musical greatness. Maria’s Packaged Goods and Community Bar, 960 W. 31st St. Wednes-day, November 13, 8pm-2am. Free. 21+. (773)890-0588. community-bar.com (Zach Goldhammer)

Chance the RapperThe South Side’s prodigal hip-hop wunderkind, Chance the Rapper, will soon be returning to Chi-Town. The raspy voiced rapper will be playing a show in Hyde Park—as the headliner for the University of Chicago’s fall concert—as well as at North Side venue the Riviera Theatre. The rapper has continued to progress in leaps and bounds this year, following up his promising “10 Days” mixtape with the monumental success of his debut album, “Acid Raps.” Chance’s clever, smart aleck rhymes and sing-song flow has proven to be a powerful counterpunch to the city’s drill rap scene, defined by its syntactically simple lyrics and guttural deliveries. As Chance’s South Side–based Save Money crew continues to gain traction, the upcoming year may prove to be huge for the rapper and his Chicago cohort. Come catch a rising star as he plays before the hometown crowd this November. The Riviera Theatre, 4746 N. Racine Ave. Friday, November 29, 7:30pm. $21. (773)275-6800. jamusa.com

WHPK Rock ChartsWHPK 88.5 FM is a nonprofit community radio station of the University of Chicago. Once a week the station’s music directors collect a book of playlist logs from their Rock-format DJs, tally up the plays of albums added within the last few months, and rank them according to popularity that week.

compiled by rachel Schastok and charlie rock Artist / Album / Label1. Fury / Flying / hoZac2. mind Spiders / inhumanistic / dirtnap3. oozing Wound / retrash / thrill jockey4. graham lambkin & jason lescalleet / Photographs / erstwhile5. joanna gruesome / Weird Sister / Slumberland6. mitochondrion / antinumerology / dark descent7. roomrunner / ideal cities / Fan death8. uh bones / only You / randy9. neo boys / Sooner or later / k10. tender trap / dansette dansette / Slumberland11. big Zit / demo / s/r12. una bèstia incontrolable / observant com el mon es destrueix / la vida es un mus13. neighborhood brats / no Sun no tan / deranged14. marine research / Sounds From the gulf Stream / k15. the chipmunks / chipmunk Punk / excelsior

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October 30, 2013