If you’ve ever been to a show at Thalia Hall, you’ve walked right past Anna-Michal Paul’s work. She creates the hand-drawn chalk art that greets concertgoers as they ascend the stairs to the second-floor venue. Her detailed, textured portraits and stylized lettering, which she catalogs on Instagram at latenightchalkshow, are as much a part of Thalia’s identity as the musicians who headline the hall every time they come to Chicago. In fact, because she’s created thousands of promotional chalk designs for Thalia, you could argue that she’s its most frequently booked artist.

As told to Leor Galil

I moved to Chicago in 2012. Dusek’s, I think, was opening up shortly after that. I was hosting there and started doing their beer board, which was basically just writing up their rotating drafts. One of the bar managers one day was like, “You should try this one font—this beer company’s got a really cool font.” So that developed. About a year later, when Thalia Hall opened, Pete Falknor, the manager, asked me to do the chalkboard—they’ve got this massive eight-by-ten chalkboard. 

It was honestly just kind of a job for a while. It was just something to pay the bills with. Over the years, it’s developed into, like, “What can I do next? What can I create?” I’ve started doing more portraits, and I’ve started doing a little more involved pieces, which has been a lot of fun. I was actually just talking to [16 on Center assistant talent buyer] Bobby Ramirez, and we found out that with an average of 200 shows a year I’ve done roughly 2,000 chalk murals. It’s wild to think about.

I grew up in a very artistic family. And [art making] has always been something that’s just kind of been around, and something that . . . I therefore probably took for granted. So I think hearing other people appreciate what I was doing kind of gave me a little boost. Like, “Oh, this is interesting. I can make this into something more.” And I love to challenge myself. I’m a very self-competitive person. I wanted to push it and see what I could do. I think maybe three or four years ago is when I started doing more portraits. 

In second grade, I would draw caricatures of friends in Sunday school, or I would skip certain classes to get to art class early and finish up projects. It has definitely been something that has just been a part of my life. I will say, it was really hard as a young kid—I have five older siblings, two of which are older sisters, and both of them are incredibly talented artists. So I was definitely growing up in that shadow and always feeling like a little caboose trying to keep up with them. They were big shoes to fill. One of them got a full ride to the Art Institute, and the other is now teaching art full-time. 

When they left my surroundings is when I started to really explore more and explore my own internal inspiration—expressing what is truly coming from me, and not necessarily trying to mimic or follow in someone’s footsteps.

My family joke is that I live a very haphazard life. And yeah, I do; life just kind of happens to me. I was invited to live up here with two of my sisters. One was leaving for the Peace Corps, and the other planned to stay in a little two-bedroom apartment in Pilsen—where I paid $650 a month for the whole place. And then seven months passed, and [my sister] Caroline decided to move back to North Carolina. And that was around the time that I got the job at Dusek’s. I most definitely was not focusing on creativity. I was, you know, processing being in the city by myself, being 20 years old, and working at a bar-restaurant—that leads to less creativity. 

It was more of a fun time for me, which is still an expression of oneself. Even the way you present yourself—clothing is also a way that I creatively express myself. I’m really lucky to have been given the opportunity to have a canvas that’s given to me every single day, and being forced into that routine of exercising the artistic muscle of creating. 

This was always a side hustle. I went from hosting to serving. I worked at a cocktail bar for a couple years. In 2015, I took the jump to go completely freelance—I took the jump to leave the industry and really just challenge myself to hustle. To really look for ways to support myself while still doing creative things: filmmaking, art. 

It just worked! I was still doing graphic design, even when I went freelance. I was looking for any bar or restaurant that needed sidewalk chalkboards done or menu boards done. Thalia was a really nice liaison; people would come to shows and follow up with me and say, “Hey, I’ve got a restaurant and a chalkboard that needs help. Do you want to come make it pretty?” Establishing those kinds of relationships, and creating repeat customers through that, really helped me establish a career. Now, Thalia is basically my bread and butter—aside from, like, street fests in the summertime. 

The night before, I’ll research the band—just a quick Google search of the band name, followed by a poster or album cover, and see what pops up. Scroll through and see what shape, what images, catch my eye—colors, patterns. I’ll download a bunch of those photos. When I get [to Thalia], the most satisfying part is erasing the night before’s [chalk art], believe it or not.

I’ll usually start with the graphic—the image itself. I tend to do the band name last. I’ll use the side of the chalk, and I’ll create this rough ghost-shadow of whatever image I’m putting up there. Then I’ll step back. I’ll envision where I want the words to go, and if it doesn’t fit, it’s a light sketch, so I’ll be able to move it around easily. Then I take it one little section at a time. 

I love Ty, so I’m like, “I’m gonna put some good time into this. I’m gonna make this really fucking awesome.” Instead of just filling sections in, I’m filling it in with patterns and swirls. I’m like three hours in, and someone comes up behind me and says “excuse me.” I turn around, and it’s Ty Segall. He introduces himself—which he did not need to. He says, “I’m so sorry, but that is from a different band of mine.” [Editor’s note: Anna-Michal was re-creating the album art for the Ty Segall Band’s 2012 album Slaughterhouse; the group performing that night was Fuzz.]

He just kept apologizing: “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” “No problem, dude. I’ll change it into something else.” I ended up turning the face of—it was a skeleton or something—into the face of the fuzz creature, the blue creature on their [2013 self-titled] album. I got it on time-lapse too. So I’ve got little clips of me blushing and talking to Ty Segall while he’s sitting there apologizing to me, and I’m like, “I’m sorry for fucking up your stuff.” And he’s like, “I’m sorry for fucking up your stuff.” That was a pleasant experience.

Not gonna lie—I absolutely take it for granted so often. I think a lot of that is due to the fact that it all kind of happened to me, and it kind of birthed itself. But that being said, I do reach moments of taking a step back and looking at this weird-ass life with this weird-ass job that I have, and things that I would never even have imagined for myself, and it’s really fucking cool. What an opportunity, to get to come into contact with these people that are influencing music, and in one of the biggest music cities in the country. It’s an honor. I’m humbled. I’m all of these things. It’s just cool.

And it’s a huge privilege to be able to do this. Not a lot of people get to walk into work and look forward to fucking up the thing they did the night before so they can make something new. The people that work there are just incredible, and the people that come through . . . nothing but good vibes.

Read More

A teenage Jamie Hodge enchanted the international underground-dance community in 1993 with his debut 12-inch as Born Under a Rhyming Planet, Analog: Heaven. Techno figurehead Richie Hawtin released Hodge’s music on his Plus 8 label after the Chicago producer played him some original recordings—he dropped in on Hawtin in Ontario at the end of a tour he and his mom had taken to visit east-coast colleges he was thinking of attending. Hodge stopped releasing solo dance recordings after a couple more singles for Plus 8, just as the larger music industry shifted focus from alternative rock to electronic dance. As Peter Margasak detailed in a 2001 Reader profile of Hodge, the hype that swept the scene helped push him out of it—he feared it would corrode what he loved about the music. Hodge redirected his energy into crate digging and joined DJ crew Sheer Magic, whose soul and funk sounds helped make Danny’s Tavern in Bucktown a nightlife destination. He also launched Aestuarium Records in 2001 with a reissue of the 1967 soul-jazz masterpiece On the Beach by Philip Cohran & the Artistic Heritage Ensemble. Hodge didn’t stop making music completely, though, and in the late 1990s, he began exploring the intersection of down-tempo techno and jazz as part of Conjoint, a group that also included three German musicians. But nearly three decades have passed since the most recent 12-inch by Born Under a Rhyming Planet, which makes that solo project more appealing to the Hodges of the world—it’s become crate-digger bait itself. 

Fortunately, UK underground duo Demdike Stare have made it a lot easier to hear Hodge’s solo work. In late July, their DDS label issued the first-ever full-length under the Born Under a Rhyming Planet name. The archival compilation Diagonals spans more than a decade of Hodge’s tinkerings and collaborations, from the early 90s till the mid-2000s, and its cheeky irreverence creates a zone where all sorts of clashing aesthetics can rub elbows: lighter-than-air ambient jazz (“Menthol”), brooding down-tempo techno (“Hyperreal”), and noise that’ll test your patience even if you can dance to anything (“Interstate”). Diagonals captures what made Hodge a phenom in the first place. The firm, gentle pulse of “Avenue,” with its up-tempo, bell-like melody, massages you into a trance, while the tranquil “Siemansdamm” pours on layers of light percussion and synths like melted chocolate over nougat (Hodge wrote it with his collaborators in the group Studio Pankow, Kai Kroker and David “Move D” Moufang, the latter also of Conjoint). Diagonals can be a lot to swallow at once, even after Born Under a Rhyming Planet’s long absence, but it’s a good reminder of how much richer music is with Jamie Hodge in it.

Born Under a Rhyming Planet’s Diagonals is available through Boomkat.

Read More

In 2013, a woman sued Collins for attacking her inside a Walgreens and arresting her without justification. The woman sued Collins and the city; according to court documents, she had stopped at the Walgreens after finishing her waitressing shift when she encountered Collins. The woman told Collins he’d illegally parked his car, and he followed her into the store, “forcibly grabbed her arm, causing bruising . . . then grabbed her in a bear hug from behind, and then forcibly hauled her to the area of the pharmacist in the store.” He then produced a badge and arrested the woman, who was attempting to call 911. IPRA investigators closed the case because the complainant refused to sign a sworn affidavit, but the city settled the lawsuit for $35,000. 

At one point, Collins was accused by his supervisors of working part-time for the Chicago Park District while faking medical leave as a police officer. 

Collins says he believes wholeheartedly in his innocence concerning all 42 complaints—in part because he’s still a police officer. Now, he’s also running to be mayor of Chicago. 

“Under my administration as mayor, due process will be granted to everyone,” Collins said. “The full investigation would actually occur, not just settling accusations without any investigation whatsoever, just so you don’t take the risk of finding out whether you’re gonna pay more for a lawsuit or not pay for a lawsuit at all. To me, that makes no sense. That has got to stop. It just makes it so that the city’s just an open checkbook for anybody.”

“That young boy is trying to terrorize the neighborhood”

Some of the complaints in Collins’s file included allegations of domestic abuse and sexual assault. 

In 2000, a woman who was in her 20s accused Collins of sexually assaulting her beginning when she was eight years old. She signed a form releasing her medical records to the CPD’s Internal Affairs Division—since renamed the Bureau of Internal Affairs—which was handling her complaint, and provided a statement. Investigators determined the allegations were unsustained because of insufficient evidence.

In a separate incident in 2000, a woman accused Colins of failing to return her car keys or inventory them after towing her car. She also accused Collins of inappropriately touching her after pulling her over and searching her. After getting bailed out, the woman says Collins offered her a ride home, entered her home, “made sexual advances and touched her leg in her house.” 

Investigators determined there was insufficient evidence to prove that Collins made sexual advances towards the woman, but they found that he “unnecessarily made two unexplained visits inside an arrestee’s home,” and that he made false reports when he denied entering her home. Collins was suspended for ten days. 

In 2004, according to OPS investigative documents, the mother of Collins’s child was involved in a custody battle with him when she came to Dett Elementary School to pick up their daughter. The complainant had been granted an order of protection and custody of the daughter, who “was to have no contact by any means with Officer Collins.” The woman accused Collins, who had also come to the school to take their daughter home, of physically abusing her by grabbing her by the coat, shoving her, kneeing her on the chest and back, elbowing her on the back, squeezing her head and neck, pushing her to the ground, twisting her arms, handcuffing her too tightly, and then paying witnesses to say the complainant attacked him. 

Multiple witnesses testified that the two had been involved in an altercation that became violent. OPS investigators determined that the allegations were either unfounded or not sustained because of insufficient evidence, contrary accounts from witnesses, and because there were “conflicting accounts” as to when Collins was made aware of the order of protection. 

A police officer seeks public office

Despite racking up dozens of complaints as a police officer by the 2010s, Collins began acting on his aspirations for elected office. In 2012, he unsuccessfully ran in the Republican primary for the First U.S. Congressional District, coming in second with 24 percent of the vote. 

He then ran for mayor in 2015, but withdrew from the ballot after facing challenges to his petition signatures. The following year he threw his name in the hat for a seat in the 7th U.S. Congressional District, but withdrew before the primary. 

Collins’s mayoral campaign website describes him as a “predecessor of what Harold Washington stood for.” His public safety plan includes a promise to “bring back and Implement ‘STOP AND FRISK LAWS’ with the use of new technologies such as police body cameras to insure that there is public ‘TRANSPARENCY AND TRUST.’” He also promises to “remove the useless and destructive policies such as the ‘DO NOT CHASE POLICY’ implemented by the ‘MAYOR LIGHTFOOT’ administration that has severely ‘BLOCKED’ our brave men and women in uniform from effectively being able to do their job of ‘PROTECTING’ the citizens of this great city.” 

Collins denied all the allegations in the 42 complaints against him, including the nine that investigators sustained. “I bet if you look in all 40 of those complaints, there’s no affidavit from the complainant,” he said. “You know why? Because they know, if they got found out that they were lying, they could be prosecuted on that affidavit. And that’s one of the things as the next mayor of Chicago, if you make a complaint against any city employee, you’re going to have to sign an affidavit.”  

Beginning in 2004, affidavits were required of witnesses to police misconduct for full investigations to occur, but the SAFE-T Act changed that in 2021 after advocates spent years arguing that the requirement discouraged victims from pursuing complaints against cops. 

Of the 42 complaints against Collins, seven were filed after 2004 and required an affidavit, which complainants refused to sign. All seven cases were subsequently closed and no disciplinary action was recommended. 

“If there [were proof], I’d be in a court of law,” Collins said about the myriad allegations against him. “I’d already be in the federal penitentiary.” 

Read More

If National Merit had to be pitched as a movie, it would be “The Breakfast Club in a test prep class.” Competing for high scores and the scholarship that goes with them—and, perhaps more important, the accolade of National Merit Scholar—are The Privileged Jerk, The Sidekick, The Striver, The Weird Girl . . . . But because it’s 2022 there are also issues of race and ethnicity (notably missing from John Hughes’s utopia) with a glance at homophobia and suicide for added weight. I’m making it sound more formulaic and trivial than it is: in director Enrico Spada’s skillful world premiere production of Valen-Marie Santos’s play for BoHo Theatre, we believe in all of these people as well as in the instructor, who seems to have even less perspective than they do, and in his aide, a literal cheerleader whose unceasing efforts to please evolve from silly to annoying to pathetic. 

National Merit Through 9/25: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Sat 9/3 and 9/17, 3 PM, Mon 9/12, 7:30 PM, and Wed 9/21, 7:30 PM, Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, 773-975-8150, bohotheatre.com, $30 ($15 seniors, military, and first responders, $10 students)

My companion shrugged and said, “Right, we know, we put too much pressure on these kids.” But that wasn’t how I understood the piece at all. Perhaps the difference was that she’s the mother of someone who went through this experience, whereas I’m still someone who went through this experience myself. My brother was a National Merit Scholar, and it was so important for me not to compete with him, risking either failure or success, that I overslept on the morning of the test and missed it. So the disproportionate urgency felt by these characters and the accompanying distortion of their behavior felt to me both real and vital.

Read More

In a less imperfect world, Millennium Park would be hosting the 44th annual Chicago Jazz Festival right about now. As of 2019, the festival had been held in downtown parks for an unbroken string of 41 years. Thanks to COVID-19, though, it was canceled in 2020 and 2021. The first summer of the pandemic, the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) sponsored online jazz programming over Labor Day weekend, including specially recorded new concerts by local musicians and videos of highlights from previous fests. And last year Chicago in Tune, a broad celebration of the city’s musical heritage, included an evening of jazz at Pritzker Pavilion on Saturday, September 4. But this weekend’s event is the first complete Jazz Festival in three years.

Reassuringly, the fest’s main events will once more take place in the evenings at Pritzker Pavilion on the Thursday through Sunday before Labor Day. On Thursday afternoon, the Chicago Cultural Center will host film and music. In the afternoons on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, concerts will be held on the Harris Theater rooftop (many of them student bands) and at the Von Freeman Pavilion on Millennium Park’s North Promenade. The festival is shrinking a little for 2022—unlike previous years, there won’t be a stage on the South Promenade—but admission remains free, as always. 

Chicago Jazz FestivalThu 9/1, 11 AM-9 PM, Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington, and Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph; Fri 9/2-Sat 9/3, 11:30 AM-9 PM, Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph; Sun 9/4, 11 AM-9 PM, Maxwell Street Market, 800 S. Desplaines, and Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph; free, all ages

The neighborhood concerts organized by DCASE in partnership with local presenters run from Tuesday, August 23, through Wednesday, August 31, so most of them will be over by press time. But throughout the festival, many of the city’s jazz clubs will step up their game with special bookings—I’ve collected some of the best.

The Jazz Institute of Chicago’s festival programming reaffirms the organization’s commitment to presenting a variety of jazz by local, national, and international artists. Main-stage sets by Jazzmeia Horn and Carmen Lundy should please fans of vocal jazz, while straight-ahead modern jazz is represented by Adam O’Farrill’s Stranger Days. The Nick Mazzarella Quintet bridge soul jazz and the avant-garde, and Aurora Nealand & the Royal Roses celebrate the sounds of New Orleans. Saturday at Pritzker Pavilion, MacArthur winner Miguel Zenón will share his nuanced, bicontinental vision of American music.

The Jazz Festival program distributes the chance-takers and crowd-pleasers pretty evenly, so no matter when you show up, you can feast on comfort food as well as challenging new dishes.

Read More

Blank Theatre Company’s production of The Wild Party (book, music, and lyrics by Andrew Lippa and based on the 1926 narrative poem by Joseph Moncure March), directed by Jason A. Fleece, tells the story of Queenie and Burrs, toxic lovers in the roaring 20s. In their Manhattan apartment, they throw a party, which manifestly goes awry when the promiscuous Kate and mysterious Mr. Black arrive. 

Karylin Veres’s heartfelt portrayal of Queenie, the beautiful vaudeville dancer, complements Dustin Rothbart’s Burrs, the short-tempered vaudeville clown. The audience opening night began rooting as soon as the first number, “Queenie was a Blonde,” began, whistling and cheering “Yes queen!” and “Slay!” Yet Kate is the life of the party, thanks to LJ Bullen’s unmatched vocal performance. 

The Wild Party Through 9/25: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 5 PM; also Mon 9/19, 7:30 PM, Reginald Vaughn Theatre, 1106 W. Thorndale, blanktheatrecompany.org, $20-$30

The supporting characters make this party a blast. Mary Nora Wolf as Madelaine the lesbian delivers a solo that’s a comic highlight. Kaitlin Feeley and Ian Reed as Mae and Eddie are admittedly “Two of a Kind.” And Nicky Mendelsohn’s performance of the flamboyant composer Phil D’Armano is hilarious and instrumental in relieving some of the tension from the more serious scenes. 

Though the production is amusing, two hours is a long time to watch 14 people partying. And while the musical addresses some of the barriers victims face in abusive relationships, the acknowledgement is superficial at best. Some parts are hard to watch without clenching, like the abrupt assault scene between Queenie and Burrs in act one. 

If you’re looking for a raunchy yet low-key event, The Wild Party may be right for you. Besides, a little party never killed anybody. 

Read More

Never miss a copy! Paid print subscriptions are available for 12 issues, 26 issues, and for 52 issues from the Reader Store.

Chicago Reader 2022 print issue dates

The Chicago Reader is published in print every other week. Issues are dated Thursday. Distribution usually happens Wednesday morning through Thursday night of the issue date. Upcoming print issue dates through December 2022 are:

9/15/20229/29/202210/13/202210/27/202211/10/202211/24/202212/8/202212/22/2022

Download the full 2022 editorial calendar is here (PDF).

See our information page for advertising opportunities.

2023 print issue dates

The first print issue in 2023 will be published three weeks after the 12/22/2022 issue, the final issue of 2022. The print issue dates through March 2023 are:

1/12/20231/26/20232/9/20232/23/20233/9/20233/23/2023

Read More