At 5 PM Saturday, March 21, Governor J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 Executive Order No. 8, aka the Stay at Home order, took effect. Here’s a daily-ish journal of how Reader staff, our friends, family—and our pets—are spending our time.
In a year filled with turmoil and bad news, Chicago hip-hop made waves internationally with songs of affirmation in the face of adversity. Chance the Rapper spoke to God in public as gun violence continued to claim the lives of his neighbors; Vic Mensa encouraged young people to mobilize and challenge authority, even as he grieved with them for Laquan McDonald and the citizens of Flint; Noname fought to find a space to live and hope for happiness in a society that seems intent on crushing women of color; Saba repped his west-side home, in proud defiance of the Chicagoans who forget it exists until another shooting thrusts it into the headlines; and Mick Jenkins preached love in a hateful world....
“I think it’s a really exciting time at the Tribune,” said a young reporter there, when it was announced that Gerould Kern is retiring after close to eight years as editor and editorial page editor Bruce Dold will take his place. Young reporters are like that. Older reporters aren’t feeling the moment as giddily. “Bruce runs a vigorous editorial page, one that engages seriously and constantly on issues that matter,” says an admirer....
In 2006 invaluable reissue label RetroAfric dropped Endurance, a collection of killer 70s grooves from Les Mangalepa, a band of Congolese expats making music in Kenya. Their irresistible blend of Congolese rumba and Kenyan benga combined bubbly, crystalline guitars with stuttering yet fluid rhythms that inflected their almost martial intensity with clave patterns adapted from Cuban music. A fleet horn section occasionally delivered extended solos, particularly on trombone—courtesy of Evany Kabila Kabanze, who was also one of the group’s soulful singers....
Despite Pilsen’s claims to the crown, the best Mexican food in Chicago can be found within the confines of Little Village—which makes a trip to Riot Fest a good opportunity to pair its abundance of music with the Douglas Park area’s wealth of restaurants and food vendors. Though the fest doesn’t allow reentry, you can make time to dig in before or after your visit—and in doing so, you’ll directly support the community that’s giving up its regular Sunday futbol matches in order to host your favorite bands....
The National Association of City Transportation Officials held its annual conference in the Loop October 30 through November 2, drawing some 800 leaders, planners, and advocates. Workshop topics included “Designing streets for kids,” “Breaking barriers to cycling,” “Introducing empathy into the public process,” and “Bringing racial and social equity into transportation planning.” “Blueprint for Autonomous Urbanism” outlines strategies to prevent the latter outcome. “As cities guide the autonomous revolution, we want technology to solve our mobility challenges; not settle for more of the same,” NACTO president Seleta Reynolds said in a statement accompanying the document....
Trump hates China in order to better hate the United States; by blaming the Chinese for the virus, he can pretend he’s not at fault for our own dead and our own misery. In that poisoned atmosphere, the new self-titled album by Wu Fei and Abigail Washburn isn’t just a relief but a call to solidarity. Born in Beijing and based in Nashville, Fei plays the guzheng, a traditional Chinese zither, while Washburn plays clawhammer-style banjo....
When we say essential frontline workers we think of doctors and nurses, delivery workers, and all of the industries and people providing us with the resources we need to stay alive. But as the United States surpasses 100,000 deaths from COVID-19, another industry has been witness to the devastating toll of the pandemic. Funeral homes have always been the last responders, serving families during some of their darkest moments. Now with an increased workload, a lack of resources and space, and ever-changing regulations, funeral directors are having to adapt to the unique needs of the profession, while worrying for their own safety....
At 5 PM Saturday, March 21, Governor J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 Executive Order No. 8, aka the Stay at Home order, took effect. Here’s a daily-ish journal of how Reader staff, our friends, family—and our pets—are spending our time. Party Girl (1995). Again. “Hey hey helloooooo!” “NATASHA!” A hero of the people uploaded the entire movie to YouTube. Glow: the Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, a 2012 documentary that you can borrow-stream from the Chicago Public Library What online and virtual events we’re looking forward to:
Mdou Moctar’s albums bring to mind the parable of the blind men and the elephant; taken individually, each one gives a misleading impression of the Nigerien artist’s full measure. His first recording, Anar (Sahel Sounds), is a cheap digital production with galloping drum loops and liberally auto-tuned vocals that would be the perfect soundtrack for a Mario Kart video game set in Northern Africa. Last year’s Sousoume Tamachek is a solo studio session, but Moctar’s imploring vocals, hand percussion, and rustic guitar picking affirm his music’s roots as communal entertainment for desert caravan stops and small-town picnics....
The provocative poster art for this year’s Chicago Latino Film Festival shows a border wall with a couple of sections that have been flattened by an advancing path of celluloid film. The image might seem particularly timely this year, given the steady progress of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda, but cinema has always provided a gateway between the U.S. and its southern neighbors. Politics takes front and center on opening night as well, when the festival presents the Puerto Rican comedy Broche de Oro: Beginnings (reviewed below)....
In looking at the James Stukel Towers, the spiffy University of Illinois at Chicago dorms near the corner of Halsted and Rochford, it is hard to imagine that it used to be the site of the dilapidated training academy of the Chicago Police Department. From 1960 to 1976, police recruits trained in a decrepit school building built in 1857, a stone’s throw from the Maxwell Street Market. One of the manuals from the academy, Penitentiary & Underworld Argot, captures the spirit of Maxwell Street....
Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Friday, March 4, 2016. Have a great weekend! Chicago State University suffering badly in state budget impasse Chicago State University and its students, employees, and faculty have become pawns in the ongoing Illinois budget battle. As the war in Springfield continues, the university has already canceled spring break and might have to close entirely before the end of the semester. Notices of possible layoffs have been sent to employees, including tenured faculty....
In 2016 the prolific Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov made his overdue Chicago debut with his frequent collaborator, the great German violinist Isabelle Faust. Now he’s back for a solo performance of one of the most remarkable 20th-century works for his instrument: Dmitri Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues. In 1950 Shostakovich attended a performance by fellow Russian Tatiana Nikolayeva of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier—two sets of preludes and fugues in all 24 minor and major keys—and was so moved by the experience he set about writing a response to the work....
“Being a Jew,” Dan Salls says, “I grew up on horseradish. It was at every family party.” So when Won Kim of Bridgeport’s yet-to-open Polish-Korean restaurant Kimski challenged Salls, chef of the Salsa Truck and its West Loop brick-and-mortar location the Garage, to create a dish with the pungent root, Salls says he wasn’t exactly worried. “The joke’s on him, because that’s, like, the easiest ingredient in the world for me....
You don’t have to look further than this year’s Tony Awards to see why we need festivals like The Syndicate’s First Read 2019, which featured staged readings of new plays by trans playwrights last weekend. “If storytellers don’t change the thinking, we’ll never feel integral to the world we live in,” says festival producer Hal Cosentino, a trans man whose work the desert play (Or Nothing Feels Like) got a reading in The Syndicate’s inaugural First Read in 2018, held in New York City....
Is there any pop star with a career like Steve Aoki’s? How many other sons of business magnates got into hardcore in the 90s, wrote for radical punk zine Heartattack, led a screamo band that released a split with Japanese posthardcore legends Envy, and ran a DIY space that hosted the likes of Jimmy Eat World, Planes Mistaken for Stars, and Atom & His Package? How many launched a punk label in the 2000s that went on to release music by some of indie rock’s finest (the Dim Mak catalog includes Bloc Party and the Gossip) while carving out a niche as one of the most beloved DJs in the Los Angeles nightlife scene?...
One of the less celebrated legacies of former Chicagoan Jim O’Rourke has been bringing together strong, idiosyncratic musicians who then forge lasting bonds. In 2001 he shepherded drummer Glenn Kotche, whom he had worked with extensively, into the Wilco fold. Four years later he lassoed the energy of drummer Chris Corsano and underground rock bassist Darin Gray (with whom he worked in Brise-Glace) as the rhythm section for his project with legendary Japanese saxophonist Akira Sakata....
Before there was Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, and Laquan McDonald, there was 17-year-old Eugene Williams. Williams’s death and its aftermath sparked the weeklong Chicago 1919 race riots that disproportionately affected the city’s Black community: 38 people died (23 of them Black and 15 white), another 520 people were injured, and 1,000 Black people were displaced by fires that were intentionally set by white mobs. Such was the state of alarm during the race riots that Black Chicagoans lived in fear, and simple errands such as going to the grocery store or work compromised their safety....
This morning Pitchfork begins rolling out the second batch of acts for its three-day music festival in July. We’ll keep track of the performers as they’re added to the Pitchfork mural on the side of the Violet Hour in Wicker Park. Chaka Khan same set up as last time except there are nicer cameras and shelby is dressed a lot warmer (insert it’s what she deserves meme) #P4Kfest pic.twitter.com/XX2T49myUW...
