Covid-19 v The Spanish Flu: Why we need to pay close attention to the similaritiesTeppi Jacobsenon June 6, 2020 at 7:55 pm

When You Put It That Way

Covid-19 v The Spanish Flu: Why we need to pay close attention to the similarities

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Covid-19 v The Spanish Flu: Why we need to pay close attention to the similaritiesTeppi Jacobsenon June 6, 2020 at 7:55 pm Read More »

Chicago Blackhawks Playoffs: A look at Edmonton Oilers superstarsVincent Pariseon June 6, 2020 at 11:00 am

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The Chicago Blackhawks have their hands full with the stars of the Edmonton Oilers. Who should they be the most afraid of?

The Chicago Blackhawks know a thing or two about star power. They have had some significant star power on the squad for a very long time. Players like Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, Jonathan Toews, Brent Seabrook, and Marian Hossa led the way and to a lesser degree, players like Patrick Sharp and Brandon Saad. A core like that has allowed them to play well in front of their goaltenders and win multiple championships.

Well, some of those guys are gone and only Toews and Kane are as good as they were in the glory days right now. They did manage to be the last Western Conference team to squeak into the playoff picture that the NHL’s Return to Play committee has come up with. They are going to match up against the Edmonton Oilers if this gets going. The Oilers come in as the five seed and the Hawks will be playing against them in what should be a very good series.

The Oilers, perhaps more than any playoff team in the National Hockey League, are a star-driven team. If you are old enough, you might remember the days of Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, and Jari Kurri leading the Oilers to dynasty status. Well, it is a new chapter in the history of the Oilers but there is still more of the same. They aren’t even close to as complete of a team as those teams from the 80s but they have some comparable stars.

The Oilers have two stars in particular that are considered two of the five best players in the world and then a third guy who is wildly underrated in terms of his impact on a game. These are the three Edmonton Oilers stars that Chicago needs to learn the most about:

Next: Connor McDavid

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Chicago Blackhawks Playoffs: A look at Edmonton Oilers superstarsVincent Pariseon June 6, 2020 at 11:00 am Read More »

DePaul Basketball: Blue Demons’ Jean Lenti-Ponsetto to retireTim Healeyon June 6, 2020 at 1:00 pm

DePaul Basketball (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)

DePaul Blue Demons’ sports will look a little different next year, as athletic director Jean Lenti-Ponsetto is set to retire this summer.

Lenti-Ponsetto’s planned retirement from DePaul Blue Demons’ sports was confirmed by the campus paper The DePaulia (full disclosure: I’m a DePaul alum and wrote and edited for The DePaulia from 2001-2004) on Thursday night.

“Today is a bittersweet day for me and my husband, Joe,” Ponsetto said in a statement. “DePaul has been a part of our lives for the past 46 years. Our dearest and closest friends were teammates we began our student-athlete journeys with in 1974. It truly has been our privilege and the honor of a lifetime to serve DePaul as athletic director.”

Lenti-Ponsetto has battled cancer in recent years.

“The changing times over these past few months has led me to this decision” Ponsetto said. “Having successfully battled two breast cancer diagnoses and currently in treatment for a third, I thought it was time to step away from the long days, working every weekend and the 24/7 demands that being an athletic director requires.”

She was a long-time fixture around the athletics facilities and campus in general. Before getting the top job, she spent seven years as senior associate athletic director, 12 years as associate director, and two in a role of assistant director.

The DePaul Athletic Hall of Famer was elevated to the top gig in July 2002, replacing Bill Bradshaw.

Her tenure was a busy one. She oversaw DePaul’s move to the Big East and later was instrumental in that conference’s realignment. She hired three men’s basketball head coaches – Jerry Wainwright, Oliver Purnell, and Dave Leitao. Leitao, the current coach, is in his second stint at the school.

DePaul men’s basketball has been an afterthought for most of her time in charge, last qualifying for the NCAA Tournament in 2004. A strong showing in non-conference play this season raised hopes of a return, but the team struggled in Big East play.

Conversely, the women’s team, helmed by Doug Bruno, has been a consistent tournament contender, having qualified for 18 straight seasons. That team has snagged six Big East regular-season titles and five Big East tournament wins.

Both soccer teams have been tournament qualifiers under her watch, and the softball team has been in the Women’s College World Series twice.

Over 1,400 DePaul athletes have made academic honor rolls during Lenti-Ponsetto’s tenure.

A lawsuit filed in April against former DePaul softball coach Eugene Lenti – Lenti-Ponsetto’s brother – for verbal and physical abuse of players also made headlines, as did a conflict of interest controversy involving Lenti-Ponsetto. That involved the naming rights of Wintrust Arena, which replaced the Allstate Arena as the home for basketball games.

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Lenti-Ponsetto played basketball, softball, tennis, and volleyball during her time at DePaul in mid-1970s.

She will remain in her role until a successor is hired.

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DePaul Basketball: Blue Demons’ Jean Lenti-Ponsetto to retireTim Healeyon June 6, 2020 at 1:00 pm Read More »

Andrew Alexander out at Second CityKerry Reidon June 6, 2020 at 2:30 am

In response to worldwide protests over the killing of George Floyd and other Black citizens by police, many arts organizations and other nonprofits publicly proclaimed their solidarity with the protesters and the Black Lives Matter movement. Second City tweeted their support on May 31, along with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King (“There comes a time when silence is betrayal”) and the message “To say nothing is to be complicit. Black lives, stories, art, and souls matter.”

Dewayne Perkins, a Marquette Park native and DePaul grad who worked with the Wells Street comedy behemoth in several capacities, including as a member of a national touring company and in 2015’s Training Center show No Selfie Control before becoming a television writer (he has written for Brooklyn 99, among other projects), retweeted Second City’s BLM statement.

And he added several more of his own. “You remember when the black actors wanted to put on a Black Lives Matter Benefit show and you said only if we gave half of the proceeds to the Chicago PD, because I will never forget.”

A tsunami of tweets from other BIPOC artists and Second City alumni followed, calling out institutional racism. It was reminiscent of the controversy surrounding the 2016 Second City e.t.c. revue A Red Line Runs Through It, when half of the cast quit in response to what actor Peter Kim described in a Chicago magazine essay as an environment where audiences “hurled increasingly racist, homophobic, and misogynistic comments at me and my castmates: comments demeaning my Asian ethnicity, using the f-word to degrade my homosexuality, and shouting ‘whores’ at the women.” In response to the exit of the actors, Andrew Alexander, Second City’s owner, CEO, and executive producer, shuffled around some of the management team.

But after the Twitter backlash, and with the Second City empire (which includes outposts in Los Angeles and Toronto along with the mothership in Piper’s Alley) shuttered by COVID-19, Alexander, 76, announced his departure on Friday, June 5 in a memo now available on the company website. In this valedictory, he appeared to accept responsibility for the failures to address institutional racism in a meaningful way.

“The company has grown significantly–yet culturally homogeneously. There is no excuse for it, and I am not defending it,” Andrews wrote. “I succumbed to (what I now realize was) my unconscious biases, the biases of the theater community, and the biases of the city in which The Second City is embedded. I surrounded myself with people mostly of my own race and culture. As a theater producer, I like to think I have good instincts, not just commercially, but also as it relates to what is right. As an administrator, I have not always had good instincts. While diversifying the theater artistically, I failed to create an anti-racist environment wherein artists of color might thrive. I am so deeply and inexpressibly sorry.”

Alexander went on to say, “I am stepping down and fully removing myself from overseeing The Second City’s operations and policies and will divest myself from the company as it stands. The next person to fill the Executive Producer position will be a member of the BIPOC community. That’s a commitment I’m proud to make.”

Alexander, who produced the legendary sketch television series SCTV, took over the Toronto Second City operations in 1974 from Second City cofounder Bernie Sahlins and then became co-owner of the Chicago original in 1985, also overseeing revues for decades as the executive producer.

Alexander owns 50 percent of the company, and under his leadership, Second City expanded its brand through a range of initiatives, including corporate training and expansion of both the Training Center facilities and additional performance venues in Piper’s Alley. It’s unclear right now how the for-profit enterprise will move forward with changing leadership and who might be in contention to take over Alexander’s role, particularly given the economic turmoil of the coronavirus shutdown that has caused massive layoffs and drops in revenue throughout the entertainment sector.

In addition to the announcement of Alexander’s departure, Second City publicly committed to several other steps to address the problems with lack of diversity and institutional racism called out by the alumni on Twitter and by many others over the years.

“The Second City commits to reviewing internal hiring, casting, and student recruitment practices to ensure we are actively identifying and removing barriers to access and opening the doors to BIPOC in every area of the company. The Second City commits to using our resources to produce art by and for BIPOC artists and diversifying audiences in our theaters. We commit to company wide anti-racist training and education. The Second City will make ongoing financial and in-kind donations to organizations working to dismantle systems of oppression, as well as to Black-owned businesses and schools in underserved communities.”

How that plays out also remains to be seen. v

Andrew Alexander out at Second CityKerry Reidon June 6, 2020 at 2:30 am Read More »

Say His Name: Robert (Bobby) Russ AKA Big Fluff murdered by CPD on June 5, 1999Deanna Burrellon June 5, 2020 at 11:02 pm

The Red Cup Adventures

Say His Name: Robert (Bobby) Russ AKA Big Fluff murdered by CPD on June 5, 1999

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Say His Name: Robert (Bobby) Russ AKA Big Fluff murdered by CPD on June 5, 1999Deanna Burrellon June 5, 2020 at 11:02 pm Read More »

Donald Trump vs Mayor Muriel Bowser, Lisa Murkowski and the Generals in The Week In ReviewHoward Mooreon June 6, 2020 at 9:51 am

I’ve Got The Hippy Shakes

Donald Trump vs Mayor Muriel Bowser, Lisa Murkowski and the Generals in The Week In Review

Donald Trump vs Mayor Muriel Bowser, Lisa Murkowski and the Generals in The Week In ReviewHoward Mooreon June 6, 2020 at 9:51 am Read More »

These Chicago Artists Created Jaw-dropping Murals to Raise Funds for COVID-19 ReliefAudrey Snyderon June 5, 2020 at 10:17 pm

As part of an initiative called Murals for Medical Relief, Chicago artists have been painting murals throughout the month of May in an effort to help raise funds for local hospitals’ COVID-19 relief funds.

chicago murals — Photo Credit: Brian Rich

Murals for Medical Relief is a collaboration between local companies Muros and VINCO. Muros, which describes itself on its website as a “global art activation agency,” focuses on creating partnerships between artists and businesses, using mural and street art as another platform for brands while facilitating meaningful visual art in the communities those businesses inhabit. VINCO was founded by three former Northwestern University students and aims to provide local artists of all disciplines with resources and opportunities to have their work seen and heard.

Together, these companies have given artists the space to create murals inspired by Chicago healthcare workers. Not only are the murals meant to encourage others to give back (the initiative has established its own GoFundMe campaign benefiting hospitals), but they are available for purchase in the form of prints, the profits from which are split between the relief funds of Chicago hospitals and the artists themselves. These healthcare recipients include Cook County Health, Northwestern Memorial, and Rush University Medical Center.

Among the artists involved is Dwight White II. One of the founders of VINCO, he began exploring painting and art in general after an injury during his time as a Northwestern student-athlete changed the trajectory of his life. White has since found solace in creating art and sees its potential for helping others through dark times. Though he has said he’s “only been in this game for a few years now,” he has fully embraced art’s capacity for engaging the people of a community and looks forward to continuing to be a part of that process. His mural depicts a healthcare worker wearing a mask (which features the Chicago flag) and surrounded by flowers, a shield, and a brightly-colored banner in the background.

(Sub)Urban Warrior, another contributing artist, is based in the Chicago suburbs and is inspired largely by animal imagery. She often creates what she lovingly calls “Beasties,” which are creatures featuring anatomical characteristics of both animals and humans — usually in bright, bold colors. The central focus of the mural she has painted is a bird which she describes as an amalgam of a crane, swan, and phoenix, all meant to evoke “grace, poise, and resilience.” In the background is a depiction of a heartbeat as it appears on a heart monitor.

In addition to information on and photos of the work done so far, the Murals for Medical Relief website also provides a map that highlights the locations of these murals. All situated on the outskirts of the Illinois Medical District, these location markers are accompanied by links to directions, as well as an update on each mural’s status (“completed” or “in-progress”).

To take a look at the mural map or learn more about the work of Murals for Medical Relief, visit the initiative’s website.

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These Chicago Artists Created Jaw-dropping Murals to Raise Funds for COVID-19 ReliefAudrey Snyderon June 5, 2020 at 10:17 pm Read More »

Here’s What to Expect About Dining at Chicago RestaurantsLindsey Congeron June 5, 2020 at 9:29 pm

The exact date we will be able to eat at a restaurant is still unknown, but Chicago is already started to prepare for that glorious day. Of course, how restaurants and guests act will be very different than pre-coronavirus. The city released guidelines that restaurants must follow if they want to reopen.

Here are some of the highlights:

Contactless pickup will still be available.
People are encouraged to use contactless payment.
Outdoor dining will be allowed, as long as social distancing protocols are followed.
Signs regarding hygiene, social distancing, PPE, and more should be posted throughout the facilities.
Employees are required to wear a face mask at all times, and guests are required to wear a mask when not seated.
Social distancing of at least six feet is still encouraged.
Employees should frequently wash their hands and disinfect the facilities.
Flexible time off is available if employees are feeling sick.
No more self-serving drink and food stations.

In addition, you won’t be able to go out to eat with a huge group of friends. All gatherings must be limited to no more than 10 people, with only six people allowed at each table that are spread at least six feet apart. You also likely won’t see any menus in restaurants — many restaurants will either switch to digital menus or fixed menu boards whenever possible.

Chicago restaurants will be a bit cleaner; employees are required to clean and sanitize the entire restaurant before opening and as frequently as every 30 minutes. Bathrooms should be monitored, cleaned, and sanitized, often.

The state is also suggesting that restaurant owners monitor the health of their employees and recommend that employees do a wellness check before coming to work every day. The guidelines also say that restaurants could take temperature checks or do other health screenings before allowing employees to work.

One of the biggest topics still up for debate is regarding capacity. The maximum number of people allowed on a patio will be dictated by how many tables can fit within the space while still adhering to social distancing rules. While there were rumors of shutting down sidewalks for patios, the guidelines don’t make any mention of this. Right now, the guidelines merely suggest that whenever possible, a restaurant should set up an “impermeable barrier” from the sidewalks.

Another decision that still needs to be made is what is considered an indoor space or an outdoor space. Currently, the language in the guidelines indicates that “dining areas considered outdoors include rooftops, rooms with retractable roofs and indoor spaces where 50-percent or more of a wall can be removed via the opening of windows, doors, or panels provided that dining tables are within eight feet from such openings.”

One of the main concerns of Mayor Lightfoot, restaurant owners, and Chicagoans, in general, is the city’s unpredictable weather patterns. A day of rain or extreme wind might put a damper on outdoor seating availability. By allowing indoor dining spaces that can be opened to the outdoors, it might allow restaurants to resume service with minimal disruption from the weather.

Before restaurants can reopen, Mayor Lori Lightfoot is waiting for Chicago to hit certain health benchmarks, but it is expected to happen by June 10.

Featured Image Credit: Chop Shop

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Here’s What to Expect About Dining at Chicago RestaurantsLindsey Congeron June 5, 2020 at 9:29 pm Read More »

El Shirota bare their postpunk soul for our weird times on Tiempos RarosCatalina Maria Johnsonon June 5, 2020 at 6:48 pm

The debut album of Mexico’s El Shirota, Tiempos Raros (“Weird Times”), resonates mightily as the world convulses from the effects of America’s racist violence in the midst of a global pandemic. Founded by lead singer and guitarist Ignacio Gomez in 2013, the band went through several lineup changes before settling on their current configuration in 2018: Gomez, guitarist Ruben Anzaldua, bassist David Lemus, and drummer Gabriel Mendoza. El Shirota’s smart postpunk melange, with its intentional rawness and volatile edge, connects the dots between Nirvana, Weezer, and the sounds of Mexico City’s rock scene from the 90s till today. Despite the band’s classic indie influences, their sound is unpredictable and fresh; on tunes such as “El Bob Rosendo” they fracture and filter their DIY aesthetic through the prism of Mexico’s distorted, sludgy, slowed-down cumbia and the carefree rebellion of its 60s rock scene. The band’s masterful control of dynamics ensures their songs never become monotonous: on “Mas de Una Vez,” growling, yelling, and overdriven guitars alternate with elegant lyricism, while “La Ciudad” trades off punk eruptions and classic-rock grooves, then ends with a cathartic explosion that slides into slinky, psychedelic guitar twang. Over the past few days, I’ve had the hazy earworm “A Donde Voy” in my head. When Gomez sings, “No se si desperte / Oscuro amanecio / Pero entendi que ayer no estaba igual que a donde voy” (“I don’t know if I woke up / It was dark at dawn / But I understood that yesterday is not the same as where I’m going”), it reminds me that we’re living in a time of more questions than answers. v

El Shirota bare their postpunk soul for our weird times on Tiempos RarosCatalina Maria Johnsonon June 5, 2020 at 6:48 pm Read More »

Chicago industrial trio Civic Center streamline their surreal sound on The Ground BelowLeor Galilon June 5, 2020 at 6:45 pm

Local postpunk label Chicago Research quickly became a locus for bizarre, depraved sounds after launching in February 2019, in part because the people involved are longtime friends as well as like-minded musicians. Industrial surrealists Civic Center put out one of the label’s first releases (a cassette called A Place for the Weak), and all three members also have other bands or projects with music on Chicago Research. Front man Jack Brockman records mutant coldwave as Understudy; bassist Clementine Wink masterminds the psychedelic-leaning Hen of the Woods; and synth player Blake Karlson, who founded the label, makes experimental solo tracks as Lily the Fields (he’s also fronted postpunk trio Product KF, though they’re on hiatus). Karlson says that he and his Civic Center compatriots find it easy to write lots of material, and in their year and a half as a band they’ve released four cassettes and one compilation through Chicago Research. The group’s vinyl debut, The Ground Below, arrives through American Dreams Recordings, a local label founded by experimental musician and Reader contributor Jordan Reyes. (In May he released a cassette of his own on Chicago Research, Broken Sleep, and he’s also a member of Ono, whose new Red Summer came out via American Dreams.) Much of Civic Center’s back catalog sounds the way burning plastic smells during its toxic liquefaction, but The Ground Below dials back their most aggressive inclinations. On “Fly on the Wall,” Civic Center gird Brockman’s restrained, echoing vocals with minimal percussion and austere bass, demonstrating how well they can transmute their haunting affectations into dance music. v

Chicago industrial trio Civic Center streamline their surreal sound on The Ground BelowLeor Galilon June 5, 2020 at 6:45 pm Read More »

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