In April, a peculiar crowd descended upon Navy Pier, not quite blending in with the spot’s usual and more conventionally dressed clientele. Tourists and local visitors sporting accidental normcore shared the looong path to Festival Hall with EXPO Chicago attendees, who never disappoint in serving the latest fashions. Celebrating its tenth anniversary, it is fair […]
Tag: Vol. 52 no. 14
Issue of April 20, 2023
On the cover: “Why you talking to a bum?”: When the very presence of unhoused people on the CTA is considered a public safety concern, who is the public, and what are we keeping them safe from?
Photograph by Kirk Williamson.
Find a print copy of the Reader.
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Posted inMusic
Omar Sosa, Seckou Keita, and Gustavo Ovalles reveal the essence of Africa in the Americas with their musical conversation as Suba Trio
Cuban pianist and composer Omar Sosa has spent nearly 30 years exploring different facets of African music. He’s recorded more than two dozen albums, and each one is a journey of discovery and wonder. Among the most sublime are his collaborations with virtuosos from Africa and the African diaspora, including his two most recent, 2017’s […]
Posted inFeature
Ghosts, cryptids, and Chicago
When Jack Wagner was 15, he made a documentary about the haunting of Wheaton’s Grand Theatre. Built in 1925, the historic theater went through several identities over the decades (including an aughts-era punk venue where Wagner’s band played). When he showed up with his camera, the owner shut Wagner and his buddies in the empty […]
Posted inMusic
On their second full-length,. . . So Unknown, Philly’s Jesus Piece reach ridiculous levels of heaviness
From the moment Jesus Piece issued their self-titled 2016 debut EP, the Philly metalcore five-piece were clearly the real deal. Slamming together the most intense parts of hardcore and death metal into something guttural and ferocious, the band arrived like a manifesto nailed to your forehead, declaring that they could bring it as hard and […]
Posted inCannabis
Locked up for cannabis, locked out of work
Craig Cesal was sentenced to life in prison for a cannabis offense before former President Donald Trump granted him a pardon. Today he finds himself in a different position: director of advocacy and senior clemency case manager at his nonprofit, the Second Chance Foundation. Last year, the Oakbrook Terrace resident teamed up with attorney Huma […]
Posted inOn Politics
Karen’s plan
At the risk of making you think I’m weirder than you may already think I am . . . Sometimes when walking alone late at night, I talk to friends and family who have died. Been doing it for a couple of years now. Going back to the pandemic when the streets were so deserted […]
Posted inTheater Review
Satirical Race Theory makes comedy look easy
The phrase “white spaces” evokes quite a few strong images. Kohl’s. The LDS Church. Late-night talk show desks. Bar Harbor, Maine. And, for too many comics, improv clubs. It’s no secret that the sketch, stand-up, and improv worlds have long been incubators for exclusion and toxicity as much as laughter, and clubs have—to varying levels […]
Posted inTheater Review
The broken double helix of pain
Donnetta Lavinia Grays’s play is about the limits of love—both in what it can accomplish, even when it feels infinite, and in what it can tolerate before it disappears. Monique (the protean Ayanna Bria Bakari) shows up at her sister’s house with her 11-year-old daughter in tow and an undisclosed agenda. (Daughter Sam is played […]
Posted inTheater Review
The price of blood
Aleshea Harris’s What to Send Up When It Goes Down, produced by Congo Square Theatre last year, provided a trenchant and sometimes anguished portrayal of how racialized violence affects Black Americans over generations through a series of vignettes, rituals, songs, and more. Is God IsThrough 6/4: Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Sun […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Searching for enlightenment
Artist Theodora Allen’s work has long reminded me of the Major Arcana tarot or a deck of playing cards; her paintings, both intimate and grand, are worlds ripe with hidden meanings. This merge of the physical with the metaphysical produces an uncanny sensation in the viewer. One might reasonably expect The Lovers, The Queen of […]
Posted inMusic
Jessee Rose Crane and Philip Lesicko of the Funs celebrate a stripped-down new album as Glow in the Dark Flowers
It’s hard to believe it’s been 11 years since Jessee Rose Crane and Philip Lesicko left Chicago for the teeny downstate town of New Douglass (population: 350 as of the 2020 census), partly because you can still feel their influence in our underground rock scene. With their old duo, the Funs, they’ve played noisy but […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago rapper SolarFive joins forces with producer Custom Made for Paved With Good Intentions
Quentin Cole, who makes music as SolarFive, has given a lot to modern Chicago hip-hop. The diligent rapper, beat slinger, and engineer has made superb albums with his beat collective, OnGaud, and he’s collaborated with some of the city’s brightest hip-hop artists, including Defcee, Mick Jenkins, and Pivot Gang’s MFn Melo. SolarFive flexes his soulful, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
‘Why you talking to a bum?’
For a while now, I’ve no longer understood what we’re talking about when we talk about public safety on the CTA. By “we” I mean housed Chicagoans who ride the trains, but also media and local politicians.
Posted inMusic
The Chicano futurists of No Sé Discos share cosmic sounds from the working class
Musicians such as Woody Guthrie, Victor Jara, and Chuy Negrete have championed the working class in their struggle for dignity, justice, and fair pay by telling their stories in song. In Chicago, Brandon Johnson’s victory in the mayoral election demonstrated the power of the working class (and of young people), and he’s named his transition […]