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Friends should talk — about their own relationshipMarianne Gosson October 5, 2020 at 6:27 pm

Retired in Chicago

Friends should talk — about their own relationship

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Friends should talk — about their own relationshipMarianne Gosson October 5, 2020 at 6:27 pm Read More »

Watch in Chicago, Cable or on the Web: Berkowitz w/Ex-Cop and 560 AM Radio personality John Anthony on newsy, police involved deaths of “Six blacks.” Systemic Racism, unfortunate mis-judgments or self-defense?Jeff Berkowitzon October 5, 2020 at 11:44 pm

Public Affairs with Jeff Berkowitz

Watch in Chicago, Cable or on the Web: Berkowitz w/Ex-Cop and 560 AM Radio personality John Anthony on newsy, police involved deaths of “Six blacks.” Systemic Racism, unfortunate mis-judgments or self-defense?

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Watch in Chicago, Cable or on the Web: Berkowitz w/Ex-Cop and 560 AM Radio personality John Anthony on newsy, police involved deaths of “Six blacks.” Systemic Racism, unfortunate mis-judgments or self-defense?Jeff Berkowitzon October 5, 2020 at 11:44 pm Read More »

Janesville brought back memories & infused my soulSheron October 6, 2020 at 12:16 am

Chicago’s Art and Beer Scene

Janesville brought back memories & infused my soul

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Janesville brought back memories & infused my soulSheron October 6, 2020 at 12:16 am Read More »

“Don’t be afraid of Covid” may be the stupidest thing Trump ever tweeted…and his tweets tend to be pretty stupidBob Abramson October 6, 2020 at 12:36 am

The Chicago Board of Tirade

“Don’t be afraid of Covid” may be the stupidest thing Trump ever tweeted…and his tweets tend to be pretty stupid

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“Don’t be afraid of Covid” may be the stupidest thing Trump ever tweeted…and his tweets tend to be pretty stupidBob Abramson October 6, 2020 at 12:36 am Read More »

Mary Halvorson recruits singer Robert Wyatt to take her Code Girl project to the next levelBill Meyeron October 5, 2020 at 5:00 pm

You don’t get a MacArthur “genius” grant just for thinking big; you get one because your big ideas work extraordinarily well. Mary Halvorson, who was awarded the grant last year, has earned hers by moving from strength to strength. Ever since she began recording in the mid-2000s, she’s projected a strikingly personal voice on the electric guitar; you only need to hear a few seconds of her fastidious fingering and extravagant pitch bends to know it’s her. And while Halvorson’s groups generously showcase the idiosyncratic skills of her bandmates–among them saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn–her compositional style, with its intricate melodies and sudden tempo changes, is as distinctive as her playing.

Halvorson has upped her game again with her latest ensemble, Code Girl. Though she’s cowritten lyrics before, in the group People and in her duo with Jessica Pavone, this is the first time she’s been solely responsible for them. On the project’s self-titled 2018 debut, the elusive imagery of her lyrics turned steely and supple when sung by Amirtha Kidambi, and her writing for the band’s new Artlessly Falling is even more ambitious. Each song follows the rules of a different poetic form; “Muzzling Unwashed” uses the repeating lines of a villanelle to consider how coverings can entice and repel, and the found poem of “Last-Minute Smears” extracts nauseating substance from the verbal smokescreen of Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony before Congress. Halvorson’s bands tend to get bigger with time, and Code Girl is no exception. Kidambi returns from the first record, as do drummer Tomas Fujiwara and bassist Michael Formanek (both of whom play with Halvorson in the collective trio Thumbscrew). Saxophonist and vocalist Maria Grand, a new member for this record, adds rich complexity to the arrangements, singing counterpoint and harmony with Kidambi as well as braiding horn lines with trumpeter Adam O’Farrill. And the great English singer Robert Wyatt, whose solo albums were a huge influence on Halvorson, has come out of retirement to add his trademark fragile dignity to three songs. v

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Mary Halvorson recruits singer Robert Wyatt to take her Code Girl project to the next levelBill Meyeron October 5, 2020 at 5:00 pm Read More »

45 Plays for America’s First Ladies puts the wives (and nieces) in the spotlightCatey Sullivanon October 5, 2020 at 10:45 pm

Time was when the future looked rather grim indeed for the latest Neos show, 45 Plays for America’s First Ladies, which opens October 8 in a streaming production. It’s the launch of the Neo-Futurists’ 32nd season. But back in 2016, the show was shelved indefinitely in the wake of a presidential election that nobody saw coming.

“Then, we assumed we’d be creating something that would have been this beautiful capstone to the 2016 election and centuries of history, where the final play would be about the first woman president. Obviously, that didn’t happen,” says Bilal Dardai, who cowrote 45 Plays with fellow Neos Andy Bayiates, Genevra Gallo-Bayiates, Sharon Greene, and Chloe Johnston. “After the (2016) election, we put the project in a drawer because we were all, frankly, too stunned to work on it. We sometimes felt like, ‘What’s the point?'”

For a while, it seemed the play that was set to be a companion piece to 2012’s 44 Plays for 44 Presidents would go no further. The triumphant note of 44 Plays–which ended with a Neo salute to then-President Barack Obama, and which was itself an extension of the original 43 Plays for 43 Presidents from 2002 and the George W. Bush years–was difficult to muster after Obama’s successor took office, Dardai says. Yet in the intrepid Neo fashion that has sustained the collective through the tumult of more than three decades, the artists of 45 Plays found a point and used it to puncture any despair-induced stasis.

“As a group, we eventually got up and dusted ourselves off. The stories we’d researched, the things we were hoping to tell–we realized they were still relevant and in some ways even more so in the context of the Trump presidency,” Dardai says.

Directed by Denise Yvette Serna, 45 Plays is as it sounds: a series of playlets about the First Ladies of these United States, Martha to Melania. The six-person cast includes a pair of Neos from each coast and Chicago: Andie Patterson and Brenda Arellano from the Bay Area, Hilary Asare and Robin Virginie from New York City, and Vic Wynter and Ida Cuttler from Chicago.

They’re performing 30-second to four-minute playlets ranging from musical numbers (Barbara Bush gets a line dance, Edith Wilson an oompah-pah waltz), burlesque (Julia Dent Grant), haiku (Nellie Taft), horror puppets (widower Andrew Jackson and his “First Lady” niece, Emily Donelson), live painting (Lady Bird Johnson), dramatic scenes, monologues, interpretive dance, and audience participation bits.

Some scenes will be prerecorded in and around the cast members’ homes, Serna says, while others will be streamed live from the Neo-Futurarium. In 1992, the company moved into this space above a onetime funeral parlor (now home to a concern that conducts clinical trials on various treatments for memory loss, pain management, and various mental health disorders, among other things). In the times of live performance, visitors moved through a “hall of presidents” (fanciful portraits of each POTUS through history) before entering the lobby.

“Part of what got us moving again was the idea of telling the stories of the women who got pushed out of the spotlight, whether by their own desire, or by custom, or by their husbands. It’s a way of looking at women and how they’ve been perceived and treated here over the course of history. We want people to be thinking about this as we get closer to the election,” Serna says.

Rehearsals have been a mix of typical Zoom frustrations (group choreography has been tricky) and ingenious breakthroughs. Serna is about five years ahead of the curve when it comes to rehearsing virtually. In 2015, she and Jack Paterson founded Global Hive Laboratories, a concern aiming at no less than creating an internationally shared practice among theater artists, where geography is not an insurmountable boundary and empathy among different global cultures could be fostered by technology. Global Hive’s current projects include an international call for testimonials about the emotional impact of COVID-19 and a devised piece started in Italy back in February.

In some ways, Serna says the limitations wrought by COVID-19 have been freeing. “I think the artists are less precious about their work,” she says. “We’ve been upfront. We don’t have a lot of time. We’re going to make a shape together and fill it with your talent. I think that can make people more comfortable with leaving their comfort zone. Someone who wouldn’t necessarily audition for a rock musical can be like, ‘OK, I’ll wail in my living room because, well, why not?'”

Dardai’s deep dive into the lives of First Ladies yielded some historical gems not often found in textbooks. For example: We haven’t yet had our first female president, but mayhap we’ve had our first gay male president. Consider, if you will, confirmed bachelor James Buchanan, who campaigned hand-in-glove with his longtime companion, William King.

“Andrew Jackson referred to them as Aunt Nancy and Miss Fancy. He knew what he was implying, true or not,” says Dardai. It fell to Buchanan’s niece, Harriet, to fulfill First Lady duties. “When I think of mediocre men, I think of James Buchanan,” Serna adds. “It was Harriet who was in charge of seeing that this man who wasn’t really prepared to be president could survive in the office.” Harriet too, it seems, was not married to conventional 19th-century gender roles: she was known to thrash visiting dignitaries at bowling.

As 45 Plays dives into the sweep of history, it becomes clear that several of the First Ladies were more odious than conventionally taught history implies. Sure, Martha Washington freed some of her slaves, but she did so only after George died and left a will declaring all his slaves would be free upon her death. “Martha saw that as an invitation to murder her. She freed them not because of morality, but because she thought it was a safety issue for her,” Serna says.

While the budget for 45 Plays is close to the bone, Serna was adamant it cover three things: a top-notch professional editor to ensure the quality of the stream, a sound budget that allowed the show to have a uniquely memorable sonic identity, and funds to subtitle the entire production.

At its core, 45 Plays is upheld by the Neos’ founding principles, tenets that have survived 30 years of history.

“We always lean in on speaking the truth and being ourselves,” Serna says. “As much as we’re playing characters and in a script, we have opinions. At the end of the show we drop the artifice. The actors talk to each other. They break the fourth wall.” She adds, “I hope the audience leaves with a better understanding of how subjective our history is. There will always be things we miss. There will always be things we need to educate ourselves about. We have to hold each other accountable. We have to.” v






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45 Plays for America’s First Ladies puts the wives (and nieces) in the spotlightCatey Sullivanon October 5, 2020 at 10:45 pm Read More »

Texans fire coach Bill O’Brien after 0-4 startAssociated Presson October 5, 2020 at 9:39 pm

HOUSTON — Houston Texans coach and general manager Bill O’Brien has been fired, a person familiar with the move told The Associated Press.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity Monday because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the move.

The firing comes after Sunday’s loss to the Vikings dropped the Texans to 0-4 for the first time since 2008.

After assuming the role of general manager in the offseason, O’Brien received almost universal criticism when he shipped superstar receiver DeAndre Hopkins to Arizona for running back David Johnson and draft picks.

The pressure on O’Brien only intensified as the Texans limped out to the terrible start with Johnson struggling as their running game was the worst in the NFL and with the defense allowing the most yards in the league.

O’Brien was in his seventh season in Houston where he compiled a 100-52 record. He won the AFC South four times in his tenure, including the past two years.

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Texans fire coach Bill O’Brien after 0-4 startAssociated Presson October 5, 2020 at 9:39 pm Read More »

Prost! The 5 Best Oktoberfest Bars in ChicagoAudrey Snyderon October 5, 2020 at 1:56 pm

One of the best ways to enjoy the newly-crisp October weather in Chicago is to have something to keep you warm while you sit outside for the last of the Windy City’s bearable light-jacket evenings. The tip of your nose might be a little cold, but you can keep your insides nice and warm with the help of some top-notch beers as you celebrate the annual season of German-style foods, brews, and music—otherwise known as Oktoberfest. Though fun and frivolity might be approached a little differently this year, you can still enjoy the simple pleasures of beer and pub grub at the best Oktoberfest bars in Chicago.

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Spread the elegance & appease the tastebuds!

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A post shared by Prost Chicago (@prost_chicago) on Aug 18, 2020 at 8:43am PDT

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2566 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago IL 60614

Reserve a table and settle in for a night of German dishes and ales. Follow up your schnitzel and fries with a cold hefeweizen at this trendy Lincoln Park spot perfect for Oktoberfest celebrating.

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2323 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago IL 60647

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What better place to celebrate Fall Beer Season than a brewpub that (1) has a great overall selection of beers from which to choose and (2) has its own particular Oktoberfest German-style lager on tap? Head on over to Logan Square for one of Chicago’s best beer-drinking experiences.

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Now on draft: Maplewood Festbier Golden Oktoberfest Lager. Brewed with the finest German malts and noble hops; a super-drinkable lager that clocks in at 5.7% ABV. Brewed to mirror what’s traditionally served during fest season in Bavaria. Deep golden color and bold in flavor, expect elegant malt notes with a light hop character. Prost! . . . . . . (photo credit: Maplewood) #chicagobars #chicagodrinks #westtownchicago #wickerparkchicago #ukievillagechicago #ukrainianvillagechicago #ukievillage #chicagofoodanddrink #eatdrinkdochi #craftbeer #craftbrew #chicagofunauthority #ilovebeer #beerme #drinkcraftbeer #craftbeerporn #tumanstap #tumanstapandgrill #chicagobeers #chicagobeer #illinoisbeers #illinoiscraftbeers #madeinchicago #maplewoodbrewing #oktoberfest #oktoberfestbeer #oktoberfestbier #fallbeers @dank773

A post shared by Tuman’s Tap And Grill (@tumanstap) on Sep 24, 2020 at 1:15pm PDT

2159 W Chicago Ave, Chicago IL 60622

In addition to a long list of different types of local and regional beers (including brews from 3 Floyds and Bell’s), you can find a Hofbrau Oktoberfest straight from München, Germany, as well as the local Maplewood Festbier for more specifically honoring Oktoberfest season at this West Town hangout.

1709 W Chicago Ave, Chicago IL 60622

While the beer list here isn’t as extensive as some of Chicago’s other brew-centric watering holes, Funkenhausen isn’t lacking in any essentials; its menu’s motto reads “Wine. Stein. Dein.” and it offers exactly those three things. Grab a “Big Garlicky Pretzel” and some Kasespaetzle, then wash it all down a Hofbrau Oktoberfest or Maisel’s Amber Hefeweizen for a strong finish.

Rona Destroyer

Lori Lightfoot is the…Rona Destroyer? What?

Need a reason to drink at one of the best Oktoberfest bars in Chicago? This should do it.

View the Our Take on Lori Lightfoot’s Rona Destroyer

2119 W Irving Park Rd, Chicago IL 60618

Laschet’s sets itself apart with an Oktoberfest-specific menu— which is chock-full of German snacks and entrees— as well as an impressive list of German ales, including those of the Oktoberfest, pilsener and lager varieties (among others).

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: Prost Facebook Page

 
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Prost! The 5 Best Oktoberfest Bars in ChicagoAudrey Snyderon October 5, 2020 at 1:56 pm Read More »

The Most Iconic Basketball Courts in ChicagoDrew Krieson October 5, 2020 at 2:50 pm

The game of basketball is intertwined with Chicago’s culture. Whether it’s because of the Chicago Bulls or the countless blacktops scattered throughout the city, it’s no surprise that Chicago is one of the biggest basketball cities in America. And when it comes to our streetball scene, no one does it better. NBA stars like Derrick Rose and Dwayne Wade are direct products of Chicago streetball and honed their craft on some pretty famous blacktops in the city. With over 150 courts to play at, there’s plenty of choices for hoopers to enjoy a pickup game wherever they find themselves. With so many options to choose from, we’ve taken the time to pick some of the most iconic basketball courts in Chicago. 

Outdoor Basketball Courts
Photo Credit: Pixabay

Jackson Park

First up is Jackson Park which is located in Chicago’s Woodlawn community. With two courts to play on in this park, players should have no issues finding a game here. Jackson Park is considered to have some of the best-kept courts in the city, as the rims and nets are always in good shape. Park-goers also have access to tennis courts, multi-purpose fields, and a turf field to entertain themselves and stay active all day long.

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Outdoor Basketball Courts in Chicago
Photo Credit: Pixabay

Foster Avenue Beach Court

This next iconic basketball court in Chicago is the Foster Avenue Beach court. While there is only one court located at Foster Avenue Beach, the views here are breathtaking. Players here have the luxury of seeing some nice views of the lake and city. Some beach access also provides a nice opportunity to cool down in the water after a quick pickup game.  

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The United Center

We’d be foolish to not include this court in our list. Streetballers might not have access to playing at the United Center, but that doesn’t mean they can’t get there one day. Players like Derrick Rose and Dwayne Wade, who grew up hooping in the streets of Chicago, eventually found themselves in the NBA. Both ended up playing for the Bulls at some point in their career, giving them a chance to play at the United Center. It doesn’t happen all of the time, but if you’re a young hooper in the city, it doesn’t hurt to set your goals high.

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Horner Park

The final park on our list is Horner Park located in Chicago’s Irving Park neighborhood. The entire area is a hub for athletes as there are nine softball fields, three baseball fields, two soccer/football fields, four outdoor basketball courts, and five tennis courts. So, on the off chance there isn’t any room for you to join a game of hoops, there’s plenty of options at Horner Park.

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

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

Featured Image Credit: United Center Instagram

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The History Of Sydney R. Marovitz Golf CourseDrew Krieson October 5, 2020 at 4:06 pm

Given the unique landscape, it’s no surprise that Chicago is home to some of the Midwest’s finest golf courses. One of these famous front nines is the Sydney R. Marovitz golf course located in Lincoln Park. Since opening in 1932, the course has established a long history of being a great spot for golfers all over the city to play a round.

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The Sydney R. Marovitz golf course didn’t always have such a long name. In fact, not all of the land it was built on always existed either. Back in 1929, the city started a three-year-long project to build a golf course on the lake. When costs started to build up, funding (unfortunately) didn’t. This led to half of the holes being built as planned, all of which run parallel to the lake. It’s construction finished in 1932, and the course opened to the Uptown community with the name Waveland Golf Course.

Fifty-nine years later, the course changed its name to the Sydney R. Marovitz golf course. Despite its size compared to normal 18-hole courses, Sydney R. Marovitz does manage to present an entertaining challenge to golfers at all skill levels. A minimum of two bunkers border each of the nine greens. Even the most skilled players have to keep their driver accurate with the number of trees surrounding each hole. There’s definitely a reason this course is one of Chicago Golf Reports’ best nine-hole courses.

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Taking advantage of a beautiful October #golf #chicago #fall 📷by @fosholey13

A post shared by Sydney Marovitz Golf Course (@sydneymarovitzcpd) on Oct 12, 2015 at 1:16pm PDT

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And yes, Chicago golfers, the course is currently open for play. The Chicago Park District encourages those interested to book in advance online, as they can’t guarantee open tee times. Masks are required inside of the clubhouse facilities, golf shop, and are encouraged when social distancing is not possible. Golf carts are still available to rent while playing, and the course has established strict disinfecting schedules that enable it to remain open. 

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If you can manage to follow social distancing rules, the combination of city views and challenge that is Sydney R. Marovitz golf course makes it the perfect spot to play nine downtown. 

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: Sydney Marovitz Instagram Page

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The History Of Sydney R. Marovitz Golf CourseDrew Krieson October 5, 2020 at 4:06 pm Read More »