Videos

A frightening glimpse of a future Biden administrationDennis Byrneon October 13, 2020 at 5:42 pm

The Barbershop: Dennis Byrne, Proprietor

A frightening glimpse of a future Biden administration

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A frightening glimpse of a future Biden administrationDennis Byrneon October 13, 2020 at 5:42 pm Read More »

Watch 4th CD Cand. Jesus Solorio(R-Chicago’s South Side) w/Berkowitz tonite in Chicago & suburbs on Cable/Web on kids safe return to schools & adults safe return to workJeff Berkowitzon October 13, 2020 at 6:30 pm

Public Affairs with Jeff Berkowitz

Watch 4th CD Cand. Jesus Solorio(R-Chicago’s South Side) w/Berkowitz tonite in Chicago & suburbs on Cable/Web on kids safe return to schools & adults safe return to work

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Watch 4th CD Cand. Jesus Solorio(R-Chicago’s South Side) w/Berkowitz tonite in Chicago & suburbs on Cable/Web on kids safe return to schools & adults safe return to workJeff Berkowitzon October 13, 2020 at 6:30 pm Read More »

Why the Stock Market is Not “the Economy”Paul M. Bankson October 13, 2020 at 7:32 pm

The Patriotic Dissenter

Why the Stock Market is Not “the Economy”

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Why the Stock Market is Not “the Economy”Paul M. Bankson October 13, 2020 at 7:32 pm Read More »

Goodman Theatre’s holiday gift to ChicagoCarole Kuhrt Breweron October 13, 2020 at 8:36 pm

Show Me Chicago

Goodman Theatre’s holiday gift to Chicago

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Goodman Theatre’s holiday gift to ChicagoCarole Kuhrt Breweron October 13, 2020 at 8:36 pm Read More »

Treasury Yields Should Rise if Democrats Win Big on Election DayPaul M. Bankson October 13, 2020 at 10:53 pm

The Patriotic Dissenter

Treasury Yields Should Rise if Democrats Win Big on Election Day

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Treasury Yields Should Rise if Democrats Win Big on Election DayPaul M. Bankson October 13, 2020 at 10:53 pm Read More »

With Swirling, the Sun Ra Arkestra wills a better world into existenceHannah Edgaron October 13, 2020 at 5:00 pm

“The satellites are spinning / A better day is breaking / Great happiness is pending / The planet Earth’s awakening.” The first lyrics on the Sun Ra Arkestra’s long-awaited Swirling (Strut), sung by Tara Middleton, sound like a dispatch from a world infinitely more promising than our own. That dogged optimism carries the entire studio album, the free-jazz institution’s first since 1999’s Song of the Sun. Founded in Chicago by the late Sun Ra (born Herman Poole Blount), the Arkestra remains as timeless and resplendently garbed as when it first touched down on stages more than 60 years ago; the only difference, really, are the new faces cropping up alongside the veteran players. Swirling breathes new life into more than a dozen Arkestra standards: Some are buffed up with new orchestrations (“Rocket No. 9,” “Sunology”), but most are total reinventions rather than reduxes. “The Sky Is a Sea of Darkness” is transfigured from its riotous original version into an unaccompanied, anthemic prelude, morphing into Ra’s hitherto unrecorded “Darkness,” a gently loping jaunt in triple time. Written by 96-year-old bandleader Marshall Allen, the title track breezily evokes big-band sensibilities, and “Queer Notions” (on the vinyl release only) gets a reading that sounds as euphoric and far-sighted now as Coleman Hawkins’s harmonically inventive proto-bebop performance for Fletcher Henderson’s band did in 1933. The passage of time, it seems, is of no consequence to Ra’s cosmic band. But it is an inevitability: On Swirling, you’ll hear the ghosts of recently departed conguero Atakatune and saxophonist and erstwhile band manager Danny Ray Thompson, who died after Swirling was wrapped up. They both make themselves heard, thunderously, on “Seductive Fantasy.” Middleton’s singing (a divine echo of long-gone Arkestra vocalist June Tyson) rises through the din eight minutes in, her voice hazy, enticing, inevitable. It’s as though the entire band has been holding its breath for her. Bracing and all-embracing, Swirling, like so much of the Arkestra’s output, sometimes defies easy description. Middleton, singing on opening track “The Satellites Are Spinning / Lights on a Satellite,” gets closest: “We sing this song to / A great tomorrow / We sing this song to / A balanced soul.” Listen, and so it may be. v

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With Swirling, the Sun Ra Arkestra wills a better world into existenceHannah Edgaron October 13, 2020 at 5:00 pm Read More »

The movement will be beautifiedRaven Gearyon October 13, 2020 at 3:35 pm

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Veronica Martinez stands by her second completed mural in Pilsen on the wall of Alivio Medical Center. - SHANTEL SUAREZ AVILA

As we reflect on the year so far and think forward to November, political art has never been more important. The Latinx community, which has a long history of “artivism,” has brought power to racial struggles for decades and helped unite Chicago and capture the fervent energy this summer. In a culturally rich and diverse but segregated city, Latinx artivism shows there is power in community, especially in the midst of a pandemic that disproportionately hits Black and Brown Chicagoans the worst.

To culminate the celebration of Latinx Heritage Month–also called Hispanic Heritage Month, though that is far less inclusive of what it means to be Latinx–which began September 15 and ends October 15, we’re highlighting five Latinx artists bringing voice to the social justice movements of our time and how identity blends with their work.

Rolando Rodriguez

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The first issue of Rolando Rodriguez's zine of protest photograph sketches, Protest Season. - BRIANDA MIRELES

Rolando Rodriguez gets his hands from his father. His padre was a sign painter. As a child growing up in Bridgeport, he enjoyed sketching and had a deep attraction to the lines, light, and shapes cast by Chicago architecture. A first-generation Mexican American, he has always had a connection to the arts–but finding his path did not come easily. In 2014, his life was upended by a series of catastrophic personal events; all in one year, he lost his mother, he got salmonella, and he was fired from his retail job.

Unsatisfied with just about everything in his life, he went back to school, earning a degree in architecture. He then scored his first job at a firm.

Rodriguez suffers from the same genetic disorder his mother did. At the end of 2017, his kidneys failed.

Rodriguez at work. - BRIANDA MIRELES

“You’re in a chair, you know, hooked up to machines for four hours, three days a week,” Rolando says of his year and a half spent on dialysis for polycystic kidney disease. “That’s kind of where I started sketching more often, to take my mind off of it.”

He was lucky to obtain one organ from a donor and now lives a relatively normal (though quiet) life–but his health status prevents him from attending protests. When they started earlier this year in response to police brutality, he ached for a way to contribute, knowing that he would be out photographing if he felt safe to do so.

The first protest photo he sketched, of a riot in Minneapolis, didn’t capture much attention. But soon enough, his sketches of Chicago photographs started spreading on social media. Assembling them into a zine seemed natural; he kept the cost low and gave free copies away to activists. “I consider myself more of a DJ,” Rolando says. “I’m giving things a second life.”

The response to his sketches has been overwhelmingly positive. Rather than considering him a copycat or a plagiarizer, photographers have been impressed by his interpretations of their work. At the beginning of October, he published his second zine, this time watercolor sketches of nature scenes. Money from each issue sold will be donated to Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, a group that has been organizing around environmental justice issues in La Villita, a neighborhood burdened by toxic industry since 1994.

Veronica Martinez

The pandemic brought on a moment of reckoning for first-generation Mexican American and illustrator Veronica Martinez. She found a deep sense of community and hope in the protests this summer–one she hadn’t felt working in retail, which used to be her full-time job. Once action hit the streets, she began capturing the tense moments of Cicero, where she grew up, which shook with violent unrest and clashes between Black and Brown neighbors. Pulling from her Latinx culture’s roots of family and community, she felt compelled to do her part to heal and bring people together.

“Wanting to help each other out is at the core of why I create art,” Martinez says. “Is it going to change the world? I don’t know, but if it can help somebody tell their story, then great.”

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Veronica Martinez working on her third mural for Alivio Medical Center in Little Village. - EMILY BOYCE

Martinez felt like gasoline was poured on Chicago this summer–a fuel to create, organize, and be heard. She demoted herself at work and started illustrating for Cicero Independiente, South Side Weekly, and now, Injustice Watch. She has made protest flyers and political art reflecting the upcoming election, police department corruption, and school board protests. She created three murals, in Berwyn, Pilsen, and Little Village, for Alivio Medical Center, showing Black and Brown hands clasped tight with the same message: “Las Vidas Negras Importan” (Black Lives Matter). She says it calls attention to the racism in Latinx culture and is important for the community to see during the pandemic.

“As Latinos, we have a lot of work to do,” she says. “I felt like our community kept hiding behind, ‘We are minorities too,’ but no, we can also be complicit in anti-Blackness. I felt this need to put it out on the wall.”

Oscar Sanchez and Fernando Delgado

After losing his job at a call center due to the pandemic, Fernando Delgado turned to art to contribute to the movements. The Mexican-American illustrator’s work was never political until now. He joined social justice groups to visually spread facts about Lori Lightoot’s stance on the police and issues facing the Latinx community, such as immigration rights, environmental racism, and gentrification. His graphic calling to abolish ICE and defund the police is what really took off. “Sin justicia, no hay paz,” (without justice, there is no peace) and “La migra, la policia, la misma porqueria” (ICE officials, the police, both are good-for-nothing trash) is written on the design, which features a group of protesters and ears of corn. A delightful yet impactful parody of the El Milagro tortilla design, the image received an overwhelming response and resonated with the Latinx community.

“Art really came through for me, and not only art, but the people supporting it, and that’s most important to me,” Delgado says.

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Fernando Delgado wears his T-shirt in front of a mural celebrating immigrants in Pilsen. - OSCAR SANCHEZ

One of those people is Oscar Sanchez, a first-generation Mexican-American photographer and community organizer who saw the Abolish ICE work and knew its message needed to spread. Sanchez helped create T-shirts and tote bags for sale and helped with marketing and production. “I want to be known for serving people,” Sanchez says. “I want to know the right people that have a talent.”

His goal is always to connect with the community and create with intention. Delgado’s project does this by shining a light on the immigrant struggles and showing solidarity with Afro-Latinxs, Central American immigrants, and others who aren’t as tokenized in the immigrant narrative as Mexicans are.

“It’s powerful–it’s about understanding the institutions at hand meant to tear apart our communities,” he says. “You can’t spell police without ICE. When I smile, when I wear this shirt, it’s a middle finger to the oppressor.”

Delgado didn’t expect his work to be so well-received, but he sold out of the first batch of T-shirts in less than a month. Now, he’s working on production for the second batch and plans to donate proceeds to pro-immigration causes. “It makes me really proud to see people are wearing these shirts, the bags, and saying, ‘This is my message,'” he says.

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Fernando Delgado shows off his T-shirt and tote bag. - OSCAR SANCHEZ

Rebel Betty

Amara “Rebel Betty” Martin is a lifelong Chicagoan and third-generation Puerto Rican. Growing up in Lakeview in the 90s, she found refuge in after-school arts programs. She wanted to be an artist from a very young age and has explored all kinds of media, from collages and handmade items to DJing and video editing. The promotional video she mixed for July’s Black Indigenous Solidarity Rally made waves across social media and was one of the first pieces of hers that caught our eyes–and ears. But she has been a prolific artist for years.

“I feel like the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve been able to explore my heritage, or where I come from, in my art,” Rebel Betty says. “I didn’t necessarily, as someone living in the diaspora, have a full understanding of what it meant to be Puerto Rican on the mainland.”

Like many others whose grandparents and parents migrated to the mainland U.S., Rebel Betty feels a sense of privilege in being able to spend her time making art. Her grandmother worked in a factory, and her mother had to put her own personal dreams on hold to raise a family. “I take it very seriously, and I honor that I have the opportunity to do it,” she says.

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Rebel Betty's work - COURTESY THE ARTIST

Rebel Betty’s art has strong feminist solidarity themes. She woke up one day compelled to make a collage for Oluwatoyin “Toyin” Salau, a Nigerian-American Black Lives Matter activist who was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and murdered in June. Toyin was only 17 years old.

“For myself, being a survivor of patriarchal violence, and just violence from men, that really hit me,” Rebel Betty says. Her piece Black and Brown Forever shows two masked women, dressed with pink and purple accents, looking toward one another. Splashed across the top in a scrawling font is the phrase, “I got your back, and if we stick together they’re finished.” Between them is the hashtag #VivasNosQueremos (“We want us alive”). The hashtag originated as a reference to the ongoing epidemic of violence against women in Mexico–an infuriating crisis the president of the country has tried to minimize.

Rebel Betty says a summer of activism has definitely influenced the way she approaches her art. “A lot of artists, including myself, have stepped out of our little creative cocoons and gone out into the streets to see what’s happening, what people who organize every day are experiencing,” she says. “I know it will affect our work in the future. I know it definitely has affected my artwork.” v

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The movement will be beautifiedRaven Gearyon October 13, 2020 at 3:35 pm Read More »

Best Pumpkin and Apple Orchards Near Chicago to Visit This FallAlicia Likenon October 12, 2020 at 1:44 pm

Is there anything better than a crisp fall day? That kind of weather practically demands a trip to your local orchard. Spend an afternoon strolling along rows of apple trees or picking out the perfect pumpkin at one of these top-notch apple orchards near Chicago! 

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Hobart, Indiana

Head to the big red barn for all sorts of fun activities. County Line Orchard is open daily through November 1st from 8 AM to 6 PM. For $7, an Explorer Pass gets you access to tractor rides, a giant corn maze, and U-Pick apples, pumpkin, and sunflowers. Browse over 25 different types of apples from vibrant green and tart to deep red and sweet. Delicious!

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Sturtevant, Wisconsin

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Located in a quaint town, Apple Holler is an idyllic place to make some memories. The thriving orchard offers over 40 different varieties of apples, peaches, and pears across 78-acres of land. Stop in on Monday through Friday from 9 PM to 4 PM or Saturday and Sunday from 9 PM to 5 PM to pick your own favorite fruits! About 2.5 pounds of apples will set you back $15. 

Harvard, Illinois

Check out Amaze ‘N Adventures at Royal Oak Farm Orchard! Go apple picking, find the perfect pumpkin, take a hayride tour, or explore the gift shop. If you get hungry, stop into their kitchen or bakery for a home-cooked meal, caramel apples, and fresh fudge. Apple picking starts at $7. Open through November 1st on Monday through Thursday from 10 AM to 5 PM or Friday through Sunday 10 AM to 6 PM. 

Malta, Illinois

This adorable location has everything your fall-loving heart desires: apple picking, a pumpkin patch, cider house, bakery, hayrides, and more. Looking for something a little more spooky? Check out their haunted corn maze on Friday and Saturday nights for some thrills and chills! Jonamac Orchard is open on Monday through Sunday from 9 AM to 5:30 PM. Get your tickets here. 

Replay Lincoln Park

View the Latest on Replay Lincoln Park’s Latest Pop Up Bar

We suggest the apple orchards near Chicago during the day and Replay in Chicago at night. What a day.

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Lockport, Illinois

From their famous 10-acre corn maze to over 35 unlimited attractions, there’s no shortage of fun for the kids at Siegel’s! Escape the city for some fresh air and play Connect 4, Dave’s Rodeo Ring Toss, Wheel’s of FunLand, and so much more. Open now through November 1st on Friday through Sunday from 10 AM to 7 PM. General Admission tickets start at $16.95, purchase yours here. 

At UrbanMatter, U Matter. And we think this matters.

Tell us what you think matters in your neighborhood and what we should write about next in the comments below!

Featured Image Credit: Royal Oak Farms Facebook

 
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Best Pumpkin and Apple Orchards Near Chicago to Visit This FallAlicia Likenon October 12, 2020 at 1:44 pm Read More »

North Shore’s Holiday Drive-Thru Let It Shine Launches at Northbrook Court in NovemberBrian Lendinoon October 13, 2020 at 3:18 pm

It’s time to get into the holiday spirit but in a safe and conscious environment. Let It Shine is just that — a brand new holiday drive-thru light show that’s coming to Northbrook, IL on November 15th. It’s like every music festival ever but except for heart-pumping EDM, it’s a beautiful medley of “Let It Snow” and Mariah Carey’s Christmas album as you wistfully parade through the arches of LED lights.

The events page for the company describes it as such:

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“Experience a touchless & socially safe family tradition this holiday season! ‘Let It Shine’ is a brand new curated drive thru light show in Chicago’s North Shore. Guests will be immersed into a symphony of sight and sound in a wonderland of displays, synchronized to holiday classics from the comfort of their own car. This new, fun and socially safe experience will create lasting memories for all ages.”

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In these times of COVID-19, companies and consumers have brainstormed every possible way to provide safe enjoyable events such as Let It Shine. The organizer’s co-founder Glen Gaode said he took his kids to a show similar to Let It Shine and instantly wondered why there isn’t one similar in Chicago. We applaud you Mr. Gaode because even without the threat of a pandemic we love distancing from strangers in our cars too.

The event will be open every weekday from 4:30 PM to 10 PM and until 11 PM on the weekends and will be open every single day except for Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. Tickets are available by time slot through the website. They range in price from $29.99 on weekdays and $39.99 on weekends per car with a “fast pass” option to bypass the long line. Think about packing an entire family of six into your Jeep Wrangler and passing through the lights for the low price of $8 per person. That’s insane and extremely affordable.

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View the Brand New UM Chicago Merch Line

Looking for some holiday SWAG to get mom, dad, or your best friend? Let them rep their city with UM’s exclusive branded merchandise available now!

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View the UM Chicago Merch Line

This comes a few other Chicago holiday favorites have announced they will be canceled due to COVID-19—namely the Christkindlmarket Market has already been axed, while it’s likely that Navy Pier’s famous Winter Wonderfest will be as well, seeing that the pier is closed through at least the rest of 2020. It’s up to events like Let It Shine to provide safe, distanced, holiday options for families to partake in.

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Let It Shine is a brand-new curated drive-thru light show launching at Northbrook Court in Chicago’s North Shore. The state of the art, touchless, light display will immerse visitors into a symphony of sight and sound, all synchronized to holiday classics from the comfort of their car. Visit https://shinelightshow.com/ for more information and connect on social media @ShineLightShow2020

You can find it at the Northbrook Court Mall on 1515 Lake Cook Rd, Northbrook, IL.

At UrbanMatter, U Matter. And we think this matters.

Tell us what you think matters in your neighborhood and what we should write about next in the comments below!

Featured Image Credit: Shine Light Show

 

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North Shore’s Holiday Drive-Thru Let It Shine Launches at Northbrook Court in NovemberBrian Lendinoon October 13, 2020 at 3:18 pm Read More »