When the COVID-19 pandemic began in the U.S. in earnest in March 2020, the legacies of HIV and AIDS were a clear reference point when trying to decipher the incomprehensible reality of a world overturned. Groups like the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP, offered a vital historic touchstone, as their quest to discover lifesaving medicines and overhaul America’s for-profit health-care system, paired with a defiant queer pride that battled homophobic stereotypes, served as a reminder of the powers of collective action in the face of death.

But if AIDS served as a useful metaphor—a distant marker far removed from the daily reality of many people’s lives—it remains a material force for millions around the world, exposing HIV-positive people to greater danger in a new era of viral risk. Far from being relegated to the world’s poorest nations, as years of NGO-driven charitable activities would suggest, reporting from New York Times journalist Linda Villarosa showed that HIV-AIDS has decimated Black American gay and bisexual men, with upwards of half of this population at risk of HIV infection in their lifetimes. While advances in mRNA technology pushed ahead in pursuit of a COVID-19 vaccine have also raised the possibility of creating an HIV vaccine, one that could definitively end a half-century’s worth of cruel, senseless suffering, for many the daily reality of AIDS is relegated to an earlier era of queer life.

Thinking between two deadly viruses raises several questions: How do we consider a disease that has never left us, one with a political and social reality that slipped from view for many as soon as antiretroviral treatments first emerged in the mid-90s? Is the specter of HIV-AIDS something that still resonates in our world, and can we feel its significance today beyond the metaphoric parallels it offered in the pandemic’s opening moments?

These unresolved questions resonate in the unsteady presence of two works of art on view in Chicago, both created by queer men who died of AIDS decades ago: Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), on view at the Art Institute, and Keith Haring’s Self-Portrait, located at the newly opened AIDS Memorial Garden on the lakefront at Belmont. These works, intertwined in various states of missing context, commodification, and continued forgetting, suggest the difficulties of discussing HIV-AIDS in our times. Their radical potential teems just beneath the surface, but by existing in a compromised present, they remind us of troubled pasts and uncertain futures, ripe to teach us new lessons if we let them.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres. “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 1991. Gift of Donna and Howard Stone. © The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation.

The omission, on its surface, scans as innocuous, a deep erasure cloaked by the norms of  institutional art-world rhetoric. “Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s work is characterized by a sense of quiet elegy,” the plaque affixed next to Portrait of Ross in L.A. read, adding that Gonzalez-Torres “possessed an uncanny ability to produce elegant and restrained sculptural forms out of common materials.” Those common objects—in this case a heaping pile of shimmering, multihued candies—have invited viewers to take a piece of the work with them since he first created it in 1991, five years before the artist died of AIDS-related complications.

Yet the description of this work offered by the Art Institute rankled viewers, who took to Twitter and the Windy City Timesin September to decry a fundamental erasure at play in the description. The plaque noted the work’s starting weight as 175 pounds, “correspond[ing] to the average body weight of an adult male.” Yet that weight was not some mere abstraction: as the title suggests, it represented Gonzalez-Torres’s partner Ross Laycock, whose death in 1991 inspired a work that implicates the viewer’s disappearance in Laycock’s body. A previous edition of the placard, on display until the work was deinstalled in 2017, described the work as “an allegoric portrait of the artist’s partner,” acknowledging the museum’s role in “choos[ing] to replenish the pile, metaphorically ensuring Laycock’s perpetual life, or let[ting] the pile disappear over time.” But the new version, briefly displayed in 2018 before returning this July, effaced all biographic information. (An audio description of the work posted on the museum’s website offers this fuller biographic information.) 

The erasure of Gonzalez-Torres’s queerness and HIV-AIDS experiences is not a new phenomenon. In 2017, an article inHIV-focused magazine Poz noted that a two-page press release from both the David Zwirner and Andrea Rosen galleries, who co-represent Gonzalez-Torres’s commercial distribution, made no references to HIV-AIDS, his relationship with Laycock, or even that the artist was an outspoken gay man. While the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation suggested that any singular interpretation of works like Portrait of Ross in L.A. should not be taken as “definitive,” the erasure of Laycock’s body weight, which a Zwirner representative said had “no correlation to Ross’s healthy weight,” pushes the artist’s specificity so far out of view as to make it unrecognizable.

According to curator Jonathan Katz—who has shown Gonzalez-Torres’s work at several AIDS-focused shows, including the 2017 “Art AIDS America” exhibition in Chicago—Gonzalez-Torres, along with other artists of his generation, was deliberate about obscuring aspects of his queerness in a way that allowed him to break into the institutional art world. For Gonzalez-Torres, this strategy was directly informed by an understanding of how a virus captures its host, flipping the viral experience that would ultimately take his life into a practice of deliberate self-disguise. As he said in a 1993 interview, reproduced in the Art AIDS America catalog, “I want to be like a virus that belongs to the institution. . . . So if I function as a virus, an imposter, an infiltrator, I will always replicate myself together with those institutions.”

Queer artists in the 80s and 90s often had few other options, as right-wing forces targeted both individuals and institutions like the National Endowments for the Arts for supporting “deplorable, despicable display[s] of vulgarity.” Beginning as an attack on Piss Christ, a photograph by Catholic artist Andres Serrano in which a plastic crucifix was submerged in his own urine, right-wing politicians like North Carolina Republican Senator Jesse Helms called to defund the NEA entirely, fomenting deep hostilities that live on in fascist attacks on public library drag shows today. After first objecting to Piss Christ, Helms and others also attacked a 1989 retrospective of Robert Mapplethorpe, who had passed away the year before from AIDS-related complications, for a handful of works that depicted BDSM themes, and the concerted attention led to the show’s cancellation.

These attacks undermined not only the art world but public health research around AIDS generally. Helms successfully amended a 1987 bill that funded AIDS research, adding language that “prohibit[ed] the use of any funds provided under this Act to the Centers for Disease Control [CDC] from being used to provide AIDS education, information, or prevention materials and activities that promote, encourage, or condone homosexual activities or the intravenous use of illegal drugs.” Attacking public health policies that kept vulnerable populations alive, coupled with backlash against artistic representations that challenged mainstream attitudes of queer sexuality, was a multipronged approach that fueled the rise of the religious right.

The controversy surrounding artists like Serrano and Mapplethorpe, amid a wider climate of derision, violence, and institutional neglect of HIV-positive communities, was undoubtedly felt by Gonzalez-Torres, whose first major work, Untitled (Perfect Lovers), debuted in 1987. The artist’s naming strategy—leaving each piece untitled, yet offering parentheticals that gave a sense of the work’s intentions—shows how he played with meaning, leaving enough openness to avoid the direct scrutiny that other HIV-positive artists experienced, while gesturing at his intentions. But while this strategy to infiltrate the institutional art world meant that Gonzalez-Torres sometimes hid certain interpretations of his work, he still created work about AIDS and the wider public’s implication in the deadly disease—an erasure, Katz says, that is still being perpetrated by Andrea Rosen’s misrepresentation of these biographic and strategic features.

“Andrea says he didn’t want to be talked about in an AIDS or queer context, but that is manifestly false,” Katz says. “It’s a subtle distinction, but what he didn’t want was for the work to be exclusively ghettoized to that context. He wanted it to enter the discourse broadly, to bring AIDS and queer politics into the mainstream.”

In addition to their joint role as Gonzalez-Torres’s commercial vendor, the Andrea Rosen Gallery is also in charge of the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation, a relationship that Katz says is unusual within the art world. These dual responsibilities, he argues, have led to Rosen willfully misrepresenting the artist’s intentions, an insidious strategy that serves the artist’s enduring commercial appeal, rather than a well-rounded assessment of his work. While his foundation has promoted a multiplicity of interpretations of his work, the consistent minimization of AIDS-related readings suggests a betrayal of a truly open approach and strips away the artist’s own rejection of a sense of powerlessness in the face of a near-certain death.

In response to a request for comment on the Portrait of Ross in L.A. description change, a foundation representative sent the following statement: 

“Gonzalez-Torres often spoke about how his work set up possibilities for deep questioning, and audiences’ active roles of keeping his work in the present: As he told an interviewer in 1995, ‘We need our own space to think and digest what we see. And we also have to trust the viewer and trust the power of the object. And the power is in simple things. I like the kind of clarity that that brings to thought. It keeps thought from being opaque.’ In this way, we are always happy to see the work of Gonzalez-Torres inspiring impassioned discourse. The Art Institute’s conscientious choice to present diverse information simultaneously—in the wall label as well as the accessible audio guide—sets an example of trust in the viewer to take an active role in their experiences, interpretations, and contributions to the work.”

Katz says, “An AIDS diagnosis in dominant culture entailed paralysis and the abandonment of any effort, an idea that you’re going to die, which for many straight people was not just acceptable but preferable. For Felix to create a work where you put the infected body in your mouth, it forced viewers to recognize their role in the diminishment of Ross’s body, creating a sense of responsibility in an AIDS-phobic society.”

That omission has consequences. In an era of “museums” dedicated to ice cream and selfies, mere excuses for visitors to capture the same superficial images within their feeds, Portrait of Ross in L.A.’s shimmering invitation lulls the unsuspecting into an act of disappearance. While an updated placard installed on September 29 now discusses Gonzalez-Torres’s relationship with Laycock, it maintains a frustrating sense of ambiguity, still referring to the “average” adult male weight, rather than restoring the previous placard that implicates viewers in the pile’s shrinking size. Standing near the work on a recent Sunday afternoon, I witnessed multiple unsuspecting viewers take it in before reading the description; upon explaining the recent controversy, they expressed a sense of shock at the erasure, feeling that they lacked vital context to the work. For Spider B. Perry, a trans artist and writer who wrote a poem in response to the misleading placard, witnessing the erasure felt like someone “spit on the grave of a loved one,” saying that their work as an artist has been inspired by Gonzalez-Torres’s artistry. 

“Without that context, all of that beautiful tension, all the pain, all of the deliberate intention of the work is gone, and it’s just a pile of free candy,” Perry says. “I think the new card is nonsense, [and] an attempt not to fully admit that a mistake was made. They’re trying to have their commercially-palatable cake and eat their queer sadness too, and it’s pretty obvious.”

Keith Haring, painting backdrop of Palladium night club, New York City, May 1985 Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Bernard Gotfryd Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Bernard Gotfryd

If the controversy surrounding Portrait of Ross in L.A. shows how easily AIDS is effaced from the narratives of artists like Gonzalez-Torres, Keith Haring’s 30-foot Self-Portrait, originally completed in maquette form in 1989,presents different challenges. As with Gonzalez-Torres, Haring’s queer identity, so integral to his life and art, has often been subsumed since his death in 1990. Today, Haring’s work is readily available for consumption: whether through Uniqlo T-shirts, Pandora jewelry, or countless other brand partnerships, you don’t have to look far to see the visual legacy that he left behind, becoming in death one of the 20th century’s most recognizable and iconic artists. While Haring himself pursued multiple commercial projects during his lifetime, creating original art for brands like Absolut Vodka and Swatch watches, his ubiquity today feels far removed from other work created in his lifetime that challenged racist violence, apartheid, drug abuse, and, unsurprisingly, HIV-AIDS. 

In that sense, the appearance of Haring’s work at AIDS Memorial Garden is a welcome return, an opportunity to reconnect the artist’s distinct style to a space of contemplation and reflection. Yet Haring’s commercial legacy never strays far from view: immediately upon opening the Garden’s website, one encounters a pop-up window inviting viewers to purchase Haring-branded tote bags, hats, hoodies, and even tree ornaments. The website describes the Garden as a “park with a purpose,” yet this swift commercialization suggests that financial concerns are always at play.

The creation of Chicago’s AIDS Memorial Garden was years in the making, and its location is also rooted in legacies of queer life that were transformed by the AIDS crisis. Located just south of Belmont Harbor, the 2.5-acre park sits adjacent to the former home of the Belmont Rocks, a popular site for gay cruising and camaraderie for more than 30 years. Hand-painted limestone rocks spoke to a sense of ownership by the gay men who populated the site on warm days, and the open use of public space for sexual activity spoke to a burgeoning sense of liberation within the community. Yet by the time the Rocks were removed in 2003 as part of a shoreline erosion prevention program, these activities had largely disappeared from the area, as years of HIV-AIDS withered the bodies of those who had once flaunted inherited social norms on the rocky coastline.

For Owen Keehnen, a queer historian who has chronicled the impact of the Belmont Rocks on countless people’s lives, the move to create an AIDS garden in the shadow of the Trump administration was a vital reminder of queer resilience and its ability to survive under duress.

“For me, the AIDS Garden is a symbol of oneness, a reminder that we survived things much worse when we banded together as a community,” Keehnen says. 

Keehnen also says that he’s grateful that the Garden ended up where decades of queer life once flourished. While AIDS commemoration cannot help but include a sense of solemnity in recognition of the countless lives lost to the disease, putting the project at the once-beloved cruising site also serves as a vital reminder of the liberatory potential of queer joy and its necessity in the face of the many threats the community still faces.

“The celebration of those lives in a place where they lived happily is as important as remembering the loss,” Keehnen says. “The Belmont Rocks were so full of activity, relaxation, and carefree days, and they provided such a welcome memory in a way that a lot of other memories from that period were not.”

In its current form, the site largely eschews significant physical materials related to the HIV-AIDS crisis, instead using small signs with embedded QR codes that direct viewers to a collection of archived digital stories, modeled after the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Long-term, the garden will feature a timeline to tell a deeper story about the AIDS crisis, and the planting of ginkgo trees will demarcate the space from the surrounding area. For the Chicago Parks Foundation, a nonprofit that collaborated with the Chicago Parks District to realize the site, the eventual goal is to hand over stewardship of the garden to members of the queer community to ensure that it serves the interests of those most invested in reflecting on the ongoing toll of HIV-AIDS.

“When we opened the Garden, having the storytelling was something that was authentic and delivered from the point of view of people who are living with HIV-AIDS today,” Chicago Parks Foundation Executive Director Willa Lang says. “That was a good start, but now the rest of the project needs to be carried out by the community, and as we move forward, we want the next generation to really take it on and add their touch and their relevance to it as well.”

COVID denialism—both in the government’s organized abandonment of the sick and vulnerable, as well as the general public’s deep-felt apathy to public health concerns around the disease—has obvious roots in the AIDS crisis. The birth of antiretroviral treatments in the mid-90s, much like the introduction of vaccines in early 2021, brought an illusory end to both viruses, a refusal to accept responsibility for communal care, especially for at-risk populations. Compounded with a for-profit medical system that prioritizes windfall revenues for pharmaceutical companies over basic human needs, we’re now in a moment where every new infection leaves us all more exposed. The idea of a “viral underclass,” a population of medically-vulnerable, stigmatized people, was first introduced by queer activist Sean Strub to describe the criminalization of HIV-positive people; today, it marks innumerable others, “a population harmed not simply by microscopic organisms but by the societal structures that make viral transmission possible,” queer writer and academic Steven Thrasher argues in a new book.

“COVID vaccines are subject to the same restrictions as HIV medications, which is that global pharma’s profit impulse determines distribution, generic manufacture, and access,” says writer and activist Sarah Schulman, whose most recent work Let the Record Show documents the impact that ACT UP New York had in battling HIV-AIDS. “We do know that cataclysms reveal racial and economic disparities and impact the poor in more brutal and intense ways, and in America, without a coherent health care system, most people are at risk.”

The pandemic is not over. AIDS and COVID, two sides of the same traumatic coin, both live among us, our defenses weakened by collective indifference to human suffering. In their lifetimes, Gonzalez-Torres and Haring recognized these insidious forces, creating art that, while tactically and formally different, challenged an apathetic public to take better care of one another. While their work lives on today as multimillion-dollar commodities, this dissimulation has accomplished much more, ensuring that their messages remain potent in the public eye. 

Haring and Gonzalez-Torres have long since lost their physical forms, felled by a virus that replicated through queer intimacies, becoming two more tallies in an unending registry of the dead. But the ongoing presence of both artists—beloved in the hearts of those still living and resisting the malicious disregard for human life—extends well beyond the limits that the commercial art world puts upon their creativity. Aware of their premature deaths, each worked hard to get their message across while they still had time. As Gonzalez-Torres said in a 1993 interview, “It is about leaving a mark that I existed: I was here. . . . I had an idea and I had a good purpose, and that’s why I made works of art.” Sensing himself slipping toward an early death, Haring knew his purpose: to make art that allowed him to continue resonating well after his passing.

“I’m sure that what will live on after I die is important enough to make sacrifices of my personal luxury and leisure time now,” Haring wrote on March 28, 1987. “Work is all I have and art is more important than life.”

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Pairing perfumes with albums creates a more full-bodied experience. Credit: Micco Caporale

It’s been seven years since my group of intrepid friends decided to explore the world of perfumes. “If you take five minutes to research them,” my friend Sam explained, “you’ll find that they’re way more interesting and complex than you ever realized.” He was right, and before long, I bought a handful of perfume samples online, purchased a book to help guide my understanding of the art form, and regularly visited department stores to smell as much as possible. My curiosity couldn’t be sated, and just as I’d spent most of my life searching for life-changing music, I would be on a similar unending journey to discover fragrances I could cherish forever.

A meaningful facet of perfumes is that they interact with your skin chemistry, which means they can smell different from person to person. Thinking about this has been hugely influential to how I approach all art and art criticism, as I now recognize how there is an infinitude to what any work can be and mean. That’s been especially obvious as I’ve started doing perfume-album pairings, which involves finding a perfume to wear as I listen to an album on repeat. Each time I do so, I learn something new about the music that I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. It makes sense on a favorite basic level: I’m approaching both works with more intention and involving more of my senses for a more full-bodied experience. Importantly, this practice has helped keep my love for perfume and music alive. To give a glimpse into what I do daily, find ten of my favorite perfumes of 2022 below, each paired with an album I loved hearing while wearing them.

Credit: Courtesy the artist

10. Zoologist’s Cow and Amane Uyama, Mumuto

Zoologist’s entire shtick is naming perfumes after a different animal, and Cow is one of the more playful creations they’ve had. Perfumer Nathalie Feisthauer ensures that it mostly smells like a glass of cold milk, but there’s a candy apple note here that recalls kids’ shampoos. It’s a curious mix, but Cow still reads as sweet, powdery, and refreshing throughout its lifespan. Given how shamelessly synthetic it is, I’ve had a blast wearing Cow during listens of Amane Uyama’s Mumuto (self-released), a charming pop album indebted to the late Sophie’s erratic productions. These songs are silly and spacious, led by Uyama’s soft vocals to ensure lightheartedness despite eruptions of elastic synths and industrial thwacks. Together, Cow and Mumuto remind you that outré art can be both bewildering and fun.

Credit: Courtesy the artist

9. Papillon’s Hera and Jürg Frey, lieues d’ombres

Papillon’s Hera is the most classic perfume on this list, delivering a radiant blend of orris, narcissus, jasmine, and heliotrope. It’s powdery and creamy and most of all regal, befitting the most classic of ballrooms. It makes no effort to be flashy about its extravagance, and its decorum and high quality are obvious in more subtle ways: its pillowy soft atmosphere is graceful, and its smoothness is seductive. Jürg Frey’s lieues d’ombres (elsewhere) features solo piano works that the Swiss composer made between 1984 and 2018, and they’re performed by Reinier van Houdt here with the most delicate touch. Listening to this music isn’t just calming and meditative—it forces one to trace the contours of every single note and chord, their interactions with each other, and the silence that accompanies them. This is the sort of record that helps one garner an appreciation for sound at its rudimentary level, and when I hear it alongside Hera, it feels like I’m rediscovering the beauty of white florals all over again.

Credit: Courtesy the artist

8. Areej Le Doré’s Civet de Nuit and Cash Cobain and Chow Lee, 2 Slizzy 2 Sexy (deluxe edition)

Sometimes the most exciting thing you can do is hear an album that feels absolutely incompatible with a perfume you’re wearing. This year, my favorite such dissonance came from combining two masterful collaborations: Areej Le Doré’s Civet de Nuit, a refined, animalic fragrance from Russian Adam and Sultan Pasha, and the deluxe edition of 2 Slizzy 2 Sexy (Neva Slippin/MHPG Sound/CashCobain Inc.), an outrageous sex-romp party album from New York rappers Cash Cobain and Chow Lee. For how seemingly at odds these two works are, there is something that feels right: Civet de Nuit has a surprising chocolate note that adds sweetness without overpowering its resinous, musky base. 2 Slizzy 2 Sexy has similarly unexpected moments of playfulness, like the Plain White T’s sample on “Hate U Delilah” or the lay Spanish on “Hornitos.” Put on Civet de Nuit and 2 Slizzy 2 Sexy, and you’re guaranteed a good time or at least a laugh.

Credit: Courtesy the artist

7. Jorum’s Firewater and Artificial Brain, Artificial Brain

Both Jorum’s Firewater and Artificial Brain’s self-titled LP (Profound Lore) ferociously burst out the gate. The former, which is inspired by the Corryvreckan whirlpool off the west coast of Scotland, has the semblance of intense bonfire smoke meant to leave your head spinning. Its punishing opening makes way for something beautiful, though: a mix of benzoin and citrus to sweeten the BBQ-ish atmosphere. For how intense it begins, Firewater concludes with an earthy, dry down that’s mostly burnt woods: refined, warm, and cozy. Artificial Brain, a phenomenal album from one of the best American death metal bands today, feels like the sort of record that those uninterested in the genre could still enjoy. While it’s blistering and immense, there are moments of supreme beauty found in melodic passages and the incorporation of black metal riffage. More than anything, its unrelenting tenor can feel a lot like witnessing the sheer, hypnotic beauty of fire burning a landscape.

Credit: Courtesy the artist

6. Marissa Zappas’s Ching Shih and Steffi, The Red Hunter

Marissa Zappas’s most creative fragrance this year was Ching Shih, a beguiling shape-shifter inspired by the titular Chinese pirate. Its blend of myrrh and incense is grounded by a gunpowder note that tamps down any cloying sweetness one would find in a fragrance with such spice blends. The lack of a prominent amber note is key; Ching Shih is instead super moody, able to approximate the sharpness of a gunpowder’s sulfur ingredient without forgoing smoky comforts. Even when it settles, it maintains a faint air of dark, brooding mystique. I felt most at home wearing this alongside Steffi’s The Red Hunter (Candy Mountain). In a year with multiple killer electro LPs, Steffi’s is the most heady and austere, wielding futuristic synth pads and elastic beats with sly confidence. Her songs tumble and morph and glide, and their headstrong propulsions match Ching Shih’s addictive elusiveness.

Credit: Courtesy the artist

5. Pineward’s Hayride and Brakence, hypochondriac

Nicholas Nilsson’s Pineward Perfumes is one of the most thrilling independent ventures in the perfume world right now. His love of conifers belies the range of his many natural fragrances. (Those familiar with Slumberhouse’s cult classic Norne should take note.) Case in point: Hayride, a perfume he released in October that’s based around hay, bison grass, and sweetgrass. To be perfectly clear, this barnyard hay note—fecal qualities and all—brutally hit the nose right from the jump, but it becomes increasingly evocative as you feel it interact with everything else, which includes vanilla, nutmeg, cardamom, hot cocoa, and raisins, which seems responsible for the juiciness I sense. Still, Hayride is a perfume with great variability. During some wears, it’s slipshod in its blending while other times I’ve felt it become an irresistible tapestry of natural scents. You take the good with the bad, much like with Brakence’s striking third album hypochondriac (Columbia). Here, the Gen Z producer pulls from various beat scenes from the early 2010s, folds in traces of IDM, and shoots it through a contemporary midwest, emo lens. It’s brash and heartfelt and guaranteed to make you feel uneasy all before winning you over.

Credit: Courtesy the artist

4. Dusita’s La Rhapsodie Noire and Xênia França, Em Nome da Estrela

Pissara Umavijani looked to 1920s France for inspiration when making La Rhapsodie Noire, a stunning gourmand-ish fougère aiming for “timeless elegance.” There’s a prominent lavender note here, but it’s surrounded by a cloud of rum, coffee, and caramelized sugar. The sweetness is never one-dimensional because it’s accompanied by a heavy booziness, though any food associations one has shoot straight to images of the most royal banquets. Umavijani’s perfumes have always been adept at making you feel extraordinary in this way—like you deserve to feel spectacular—without opting for ostentatious pomp. La Rhapsodie Noire comes closest to crossing that line, but it remains lovingly introspective. When it eventually dries down into a soft vanilla, it carries the delight of the morning after a party, like you’re relishing the memories of what just happened, smiling in bed, covered in the softest blankets. Xênia França’s Em Nome da Estrela (self-released), a mesmerizing and artsy R&B album from Brazil, feels just as lavish. Like La Rhapsodie Noire, these tracks unravel slowly, and their glistening synths gild every inviting atmosphere. Put either of these on to feel like the best version of yourself.

Credit: Courtesy the artist

3. Di Ser’s Hikaru Daichi and Kabza De Small, KOA II Part 1

There’s an elegance and endearing clarity with which Di Ser and amapiano both operate. The former is a Japanese perfume house whose commitment to all-natural fragrances has made them a cult favorite; their works are typically unobtrusive and light. The latter is a strain of South African house music that features synthesized log-drum loops and soaring vocals. Like many other albums in the genre, Kabza De Small’s KOA II Part 1 (Piano Hub) is long (over two hours!) and filled to the brim with guest features, but these qualities aren’t meant to be intimidating. Instead, this is the sort of music whose warm atmospheres are so addictive that the music could last forever, be it for dancing or relaxing at home. Even the darker moments—a result of Bacardi house’s influence on the style—are mesmerizing instead of buzzkills. Think of Di Ser’s Hikaru Daichi as straddling a similar line between deep comfort and ephemerality. It begins with a spritz of bright lime before settling into a melange of pine, vetiver, and oakmoss. It’s earthy and lemony, containing wisps of frankincense to round everything out. Intermittently, it registers as medicinal. I’ve been spending time with these two during the colder months—their contemplative, impressionistic, and cozy nature makes me feel alive when faced with bracing winds.

Credit: Courtesy the artist

2. Slumberhouse’s Kiste 2022 and Les Rallizes Dénudés, ’77 Live (Remastered)

Slumberhouse’s Kiste has been an all-timer for me since I first wore it. After perfumer Josh Lobb recently hinted that it may never come back due to material scarcity, it’s returned with a tweaked formulation that’s better than the original. The perfume, which is Slumberhouse’s most accessible, is a gorgeous blend of boozy peach, musky leather, sweet honey, and raw tobacco, and they’re exquisitely blended to maintain a thick and sumptuous atmosphere for an impressively long time. It smells delicious without being obnoxiously fruit-forward, allowing woods, smoke, and patchouli to weave in and out seamlessly. My experience with wearing this recalled listening to the newly remastered version of ’77 Live (Temporal Drift), the landmark album from Japanese psych-rock band Les Rallizes Dénudés. The recording is shockingly clear, making it easier to appreciate this noise-rock classic: the scuzzy guitars and blown-out bass are still delightfully raucous, but you get a larger appreciation for the pop inclinations that underlined all their works. These are masterful highlights from two uncompromising artists.

Credit: Courtesy the artist

1. Agar Aura’s Malinau and Feli Colina, El Valle Encantado

The perfume I wore most this year was Agar Aura’s Malinau, a pepper-forward “agarwood soliflore” whose materials were sourced from Borneo, an island in the Malay Archipelago. Perfumer Taha Syed captures both the cinnamon and vanilla notes that arise when extracting oil from this agarwood, and the perfume aptly wavers between different modes: one that’s a blast of cinnamon and one that’s more subdued and creamy, allowing hints of berry and vanilla to dot the woodiness. It’s supremely wearable compared to most ouds of this sort, and its warm spiciness gives it a homey, earthy feel akin to Feli Colina’s El Valle Encantado (Popart). With this third album, the Argentinian artist strives for a folk record that’s both ambitious and elemental. Most arresting is how the simplest of musical gestures—steady percussion, winding piano melodies, Colina’s breath—diffuse throughout each song, their beauty patiently unfolding measure by measure. Few albums or perfumes this year felt like I was witnessing something so far removed from artifice.

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Read in English

En las puertas de la iglesia de San Adalberto en Pilsen hay una imagen de la Virgen María, que asoma  entre las cortinas de seda verde, blanca y roja que forman la bandera mexicana. Está en su postura familiar: manos en oración, cabeza inclinada. Una pequeña linterna se encuentra a sus pies delante  de un ramo de rosas frescas. 

El 9 de diciembre, una fría y húmeda noche de viernes, visité la iglesia de 108 años. Sus barrocas y derruidas torres de 185 pies de altura dominan el vecindario. Durante casi una década, han estado envueltas en andamios de metal. A pesar de las protestas de los feligreses y una apelación presentada ante el máximo tribunal de la Iglesia Católica, la Arquidiócesis de Chicago cerró las puertas de San Adalberto en 2019, diciendo que ya no podían pagar las extensas reparaciones.

Desde entonces, muchos de los feligreses polacos que construyeron la iglesia y llenaron los bancos se han mudado. La escuela primaria Bartolomé de las Casas, que alguna vez fue una escuela pública para hijos de inmigrantes, ahora es una escuela chárter. La iglesia de mármol, réplica de la Basílica de San Pablo, está vacía por dentro. 

Pero esa noche, en la escalinata de la entrada, bajo la sombra de las columnas de granito color rosa, había dos campamentos. Tres hombres envueltos en cobijas se apiñaron junto a la hoguera. Una lona azul colgaba del andamio, protegiéndoles del viento helado. 

Credit: Eddie Quiñones for Chicago Reader

“Ella nos cuida”, me dijo Juan Fuentes, señalando la pintura de La Virgen. El hombre de 55 años, que luce  un bigote canoso, ha vivido en Pilsen la mayor parte de su vida, encontrando trabajos donde pueda, mayormente manejando camiones. Alberto Martínez, que trabaja como techador, se sentó a su lado con capas de chaquetas  de invierno, mirando el fuego. Un tercer hombre, Xavier, envuelto en una bufanda del que solo asomaban sus ojos y nariz, echaba papel al fuego. Los hombres han vivido en los escalones durante varios meses.

“Se supone que es una iglesia, pero de todos modos no se deja de ver que estamos en la calle”, dijo Martínez. Los hombres recordaban sus vidas pasadas: sus madres, el viaje aquí desde México y las ricas duchas calientes. Si la Arquidiócesis vende la iglesia, me dijeron, perderán lo poco que les queda. 

Quince minutos después, una procesión de varios Chevys y Hyundais se estacionaron frente a la iglesia en la calle 17. Media docena de mujeres blancas  mayores salieron de los coches con sus botas de nieve, se abrocharon los abrigos y se pusieron sus guantes de invierno. Desde que cerró la iglesia, feligreses y miembros de la comunidad, preocupados de que la Arquidiócesis pronto venderá la propiedad, han luchado para proteger San Adalberto. Hace solo unas semanas, cinco feligreses fueron arrestados por la policía después de intentar bloquear la extracción de La Pieta, una querida estatua que replica la escultura original de Michelangelo. La estatua fue trasladada a la cercana Iglesia Católica de San Pablo. Las mujeres caminaron hacia la pintura de la Virgen María. Una mujer llevaba una silla plástica. Hablé con la única mujer que hablaba español. 

“Estamos aquí para el rosario”, me dijo Linda Ruiz en tono sobrio. Me dijo que viajaba desde Berwyn. Todos los viernes de 7 a 9 de la noche, los antiguos feligreses, tanto polacos como mexicanos, se reúnen frente a las puertas cerradas de San Adalberto para rezar el rosario. “Oren con nosotros para salvar la iglesia de San Adalberto”, dice un letrero clavado en un andamio de madera. “Unidos en Oración.“ 

Credit: Eddie Quiñones for Chicago Reader

“Hay tantas iglesias que han cerrado pero no han destruido”, me dijo Ruiz. “¿Por qué deben destruir nuestra iglesia?”

Fuimos interrumpidos por gritos. 

“Esta es nuestra iglesia! Tienes a San Pablo! ¡Vete a San Pablo!”, gritó una mujer blanca con una chaqueta morada y un gorro de pompóm. Insistió en que los hombres se mudaran a otra iglesia a una milla de distancia. 

“¡Regresa a Polonia!” respondió Fuentes, en inglés. “¡Soy de México!” Ruiz me dijo que a los feligreses les preocupaba que el fuego estuviera demasiado cerca a los pisos de mármol. Pero los hombres insistieron en que el piso no era combustible porque en realidad era de concreto. Además, decían los hombres que necesitaban el fuego para calentarse. La mujer de la chaqueta morada insistió en que se fueran. 

Sin pensar (probablemente debido a mi educación católica) le pregunté dónde se suponía que irían los hombres. 

“Eso es lo que queremos saber”, me dijo Ruiz. “Es responsabilidad de la ciudad y de la Arquidiócesis ayudar a los pobres”. La mujer de la chaqueta morada comenzó a deshacer las cuerdas que sujetaban la lona al andamio, diciendo que pertenecía al grupo del rosario. De repente un hombre empujó una cámara en frente de mi cara.

“¿Estás con Lori Lightfoot?” me preguntó. 

Le dije que trabajaba en el Chicago Reader.

“¡Así que trabajas con la ciudad!” (Más tarde me enteré que el hombre era un reportero de Polvision TV 62.1, el canal de noticias en polaco de Chicago.) 

Mientras tanto, la mujer de la chaqueta morada seguía deshaciendo las cuerdas. Arrojó algunas de las pertenencias de los hombres a la vereda. Los otros feligreses se quedaban mirando. Martínez suplicó que el hombre con la cámara dejará de grabar. Fuentes se retiró. 

Y entonces, como si nada hubiera pasado, los feligreses comenzaron a cantar en oración. Algunos leian de partituras. “¡Matka Boska!” gritaron a la imagen de la Virgen María, su mirada fijada a los tres hombres que se encogieron en una esquina. 

Credit: Eddie Quiñones for Chicago Reader

Fundada por la comunidad polaca católica, la iglesia de San Adalberto ha abierto sus puertas a los inmigrantes del barrio durante varias décadas. Cuando la población mexicana creció en los mediados de 1970, la iglesia comenzó a ofrecer misa en español y polaco para satisfacer las necesidades de sus nuevos feligreses. Para Ruiz, San Adalberto fue el centro de su vida, donde celebró bautizos, comuniones, bodas y asistió a funerales.  

“Cuando uno llega primero al barrio, siempre se queda ese recuerdo y quiere uno regresar”, me dijo Ruiz. “Y hemos regresado todos los domingos”. 

Pero sus preocupaciones crecieron en la última década debido a un cambio de liderazgo. Poco a poco comenzó a escuchar rumores de que la Arquidiócesis cerraría San Adalberto. “El padre Michael Enright nos dijo durante mucho tiempo que nunca iban a cerrar la iglesia”, dijo Ruiz. 

En 2015, la Arquidiócesis comenzó a consolidar y cerrar iglesias en Pilsen, citando baja participación y menos sacerdotes. El padre Enright también estaba a cargo de San Paul, dejando a los feligreses preocupados de que San Adalberto no tuviera  alguien que los defendiera. 

En 2017, un año después de anunciar que cerrarán San Adalberto, se reportó que la Arquidiócesis entró en negociaciones contractuales con la Academia de Música de Chicago para comprar la iglesia, pero la venta fracasó. En 2019, la Arquidiócesis intentó vender la iglesia a City Pads, una empresa de desarrollo, por $4 millones. Pero, de nuevo, la venta fracasó. 

Un documento proporcionado al Reader por el concejal del Distrito 25 Byron Sigcho-Lopez muestra otro intento en meses recientes por la Arquidiócesis para vender la propiedad de la iglesia a “ANEW LLC”, una empresa de bienes raíces con oficinas en Miami. Daniel Davidson, el dueño de la compañía, tiene un largo historial en la reurbanización de vecindarios. En 2003, convirtió una sinagoga de Miami en un lugar exclusivo para eventos privados y lo llamó La casa del templo. 

Un representante de la Arquidiócesis se negó a comentar sobre el documento, pero dijo que “la iglesia todavía se vende” para quien pueda darle un buen uso a la comunidad y honrar su historia. 

Mientras los feligreses cantaban, Sigcho-López llegó con un ayudante. Desde que fue elegido, ha hecho varios intentos para evitar la remodelación de la propiedad de la iglesia. En 2019, después de que se cerraran las puertas de San Adalberto, Sigcho-Lopez presentó una ordenanza al Ayuntamiento para hacer cambios a la zonificación y así  evitar la construcción residencial. La ordenanza nunca llegó a votación. Unos meses más tarde, le pidió al Departamento de Planificación y Desarrollo de la ciudad que preservara la iglesia dándole una designación histórica. Sus súplicas fueron ignoradas. 

En un último intento para salvar la iglesia, Sigcho-López volvió a presentar su ordenanza al Ayuntamiento  a principios de este año. Esta vez, la ciudad le advirtió que la Arquidiócesis podría demandar a la ciudad para defender sus derechos propietarios. La ordenanza fue aprobada por el comité de zonificación, pero los aliados de la alcaldesa Lori Lightfoot, los concejales Nicholas Sposato y Ariel Reboyras, bloquearon la votación. En un fuerte intercambio con la alcaldesa, Sigcho-López acusó a Lightfoot de intervenir en los asuntos del distrito para salvar sus apariencias con la Arquidiócesis. Desde entonces, la ordenanza se ha estancado. 

“La oficina de la alcaldesa, al bloquear la votación, está engañando a la comunidad y empujando una propuesta sin el debido proceso”, dijo Sigcho-Lopez. 

Siendo un inmigrante ecuatoriano, Sigcho-López se mostró comprensivo con los feligreses y los hombres que recogían sus pertenencias. Él y la feligrés Judy Vázquez discutieron soluciones alternativas para los hombres que estaban temblando. 

Los policías fueron los últimos en llegar. Los dos oficiales aseguraron a todos que los campamentos no podían ser removidos porque la iglesia es propiedad privada. Dijieron que la autoridad recae con la Arquidiócesis. A los hombres se les permitió quedarse, con tal que no hubiera fuego.

Pronto los suaves susurros de las oraciones se extinguieron. Las mujeres regresaron a sus autos y se fueron. Los hombres regresaron a sus lugares. La única luz que quedó fue la de la linterna que alumbraba a la Virgen María. 

Credit: Eddie Quiñones for Chicago Reader

El día de la Virgen de Guadalupe, los mexicanos celebran su aparición en 1531 a un joven campesino indigeno que caminaba hacia el cerro del Tepeyac. Celebramos la ocasión como el cumpleaños de cualquier miembro de la familia, preparando tamales y champurrado.

El domingo por la mañana, víspera de la fiesta, regresé a San Adalberto. Docenas se habían reunido en un día nublado. La multitud me recordó a una fiesta de familia: una mezcla de mexicanos y polacos, jóvenes y viejos, católicos practicantes y católicos no practicantes. Fuentes, Martínez y Xavier no se veían por ninguna parte, pero sus pertenencias aún estaban allí. La mujer de la chaqueta morada también estaba allí, de un humor más alegre. 

https://chicagoreader.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Amor-Eterno.mp3

Al frente de la multitud, frente a la Virgen María, había un mariachi formado por cuatro miembros. Mientras ensayaban, la gente charlaba y se abrazaba. Algunos feligreses instalaron una pequeña mesa en la vereda, repartiendo pan dulce. 

Escuché las cuerdas de un violín. La canción era “Amor Eterno” de la cantante española Rocío Dúrcal, una balada sobre un amor que no tiene fin. Recuerdo haber escuchado a mi madre cantar esta canción en nuestra casa, mientras lamentaba la pérdida de su propia madre quien nunca pudo despedirse. Al escuchar la canción nuevamente esa mañana, me di cuenta que todavía sabía todas las palabras. Tú eres la tristeza, ay, de mis ojos/ Que lloran en silencio por tu amor. Las voces de lo que queda de la parroquia de San Adalberto subieron hasta lo alto de las torres, donde alguna vez tocaban las campanas de la iglesia.

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Reader senior writer Ben Joravsky riffs on the day’s stories with his celebrated humor, insight, and honesty, and interviews politicians, activists, journalists and other political know-it-alls. Presented by the Chicago Reader, the show is available by 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays at chicagoreader.com/joravsky—or wherever you get your podcasts. Don’t miss Oh, What a Week!–the Friday feature in which Ben & producer Dennis (aka, Dr. D.) review the week’s top stories. Also, bonus interviews drop on Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays. 

Chicago Reader podcasts are recorded on Shure microphones. Learn more at Shure.com.

Chicago Reader senior writer Ben Joravsky discusses the day’s stories with his celebrated humor, insight, and honesty on The Ben Joravsky Show.

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Davis the Dorchester Bully isn’t rapping too fast—you’re listening too slow. As the Chicagoan says on “Virginia,” a track from his new album with Detroit producer Foule Monk, “Life is as simple as it seems.” And so are his rhymes, even when he serves them up with moments of head-whipping banter.

That collaborative album is called Plum Whisky, and it’s Davis’s second release this year, following May’s four-part single Portrait (Why? Records). It’s a quick listen; its tracks are fast, sturdy, and memorable. Given Monk’s many collaborations with up-and-coming artists, including Defcee and Jackie Scan, it seems he’s able to create quality tracks at warp speed—and that’s a good thing. He places samples knowingly, and his work carries on the tradition of producers who weave thick layers of texture and meaning, such as Madlib and Alchemist. 

Monk mostly plays exploratory and whimsical, deliberately building on foundational samples that often make it sound like a background vocalist is sharing the track with Davis. This keeps things interesting across 13 songs; the buried samples have you listening closer to hear their deeper significance and alignment with Davis’s lyrics. The album’s lone guest is Chicago rapper and Why? cofounder Joshua Virtue, who pops up with imaginative quips and quotables on two features, including a fabulous verse on “Astroblack.” (Davis and Virtue are former roommates who also make delightful music as Udababy.)

The record is peppered with Monk’s instrumentals, which could easily stand on their own, but here they add greatly to a densely satisfying ride, painting in coats of jazz and gospel where you least expect them. The album ends with the infamous “I drink your milkshake!” line from There Will Be Blood, capping off the project with a braggadocious chef’s kiss. People who find honesty and poetry in the mundane bits of life will surely enjoy Plum Whisky.

Davis & Foule Monk’s Plum Whisky is available through Bandcamp.

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Women Talking asks if you’ll listen. There is, of course, an argument to be made that Sarah Polley’s adaptation of Miriam Toews’s critically acclaimed novel is meant to be more seen than heard. After all, the material has been taken from the page and repurposed for the screen. And while it’s understood that any great film is an amalgamation of mediums meant to touch more senses than most, there’s also the expectation that it be a feast for the eyes first and foremost. 

The film, however, is highly desaturated. It’s so devoid of color, in fact, that it seems only a step removed from a black-and-white film. That is until viewers are invited into a space even more desaturated, a subdued yet not completely colorless in-between space that exists in flashbacks. And those flashbacks depict the film’s protagonists in an equally in-between space.  

Like the book before it, the film is based loosely on a real-life, ultra-conservative Mennonite colony in Bolivia where, for years, girls and women were rendered unconscious with animal anesthetic, raped, and then told it was the work of the devil. The flashbacks find some of the women immediately after they come to. They are stunned. Suspended in a split second, they exist neither before nor after the assaults, but rather in the fleeting space after the rape and right before the true realization that something terrible has happened. Something that, even when compared to the rest of the film, is more devastating and draining. But does the color change denote a spectrum and, thus, the possibility of a brighter existence to come? Again, you’ll have to listen, because while this depressed aesthetic choice is fitting given the subject matter, it is perhaps wholly secondary to the women talking. 

The discussions occur in a hayloft over the course of a few days as the women debate whether to do nothing, to stay and fight, or to leave. Among them are two families: the Friesen family and the Loewen family. The former consists of Agata (Judith Ivey), her daughters Ona (Rooney Mara) and Salome (Claire Foy), and their niece Neitje (Liv McNeil), whose mother committed suicide after the attacks. They are prepared to stay and fight. The latter consists of Greta (Sheila McCarthy), her daughters Mariche (Jessie Buckley) and Mejal (Michelle McLeod), and Mariche’s daughter Autje (Kate Hallett). They are prepared to leave. Absent are the most devout who have already chosen to do nothing, among them Scarface Janz (Frances McDormand). 

Also missing are nearly all the men. Those who have committed the heinous crime at hand were taken into custody, and the remaining men who committed the sinister act of standing by have left to bail them out. Then there’s August Epp (Ben Whishaw), a previously excommunicated community member who has recently returned and is the only man privy to the talking. Unable to read or write, the women recruit August to take the minutes, which Ona has deemed important. There’s that hint again that a different future might exist. A future, perhaps, in which these women continue talking and maybe even add some additional methods of communication to their repertoire. After all, they’re off to a strong start. 

Although almost solely shot in the hayloft, the film never feels limited. Brought to life by the characters’ complex conversations and the actors’ powerhouse performances as they dig into the nuances of each option, the film unfurls into a sprawling parable applicable, of course, to the suffering we all endure in a patriarchal society. While the women ask themselves how as pacifists they will fight or where they will go if they leave, it’s easy for everyone involved in the film, from production to consumption, to begin interrogating their own decisions. 

Women Talking3.5/4 starsPG-13, 104 min. Limited theatrical release 12/23, wide theatrical release 1/20/23mgm.com/movies/women-talking

How does it sit, for example, that the film was produced by Plan B, a company cofounded and owned by Brad Pitt, who has been accused of domestic violence by his ex-wife Angelina Jolie? In an industry rife with abuse—some of which Polley has written about in her memoir Run Towards the Danger—does this simply remain one of the costs of doing business? It shouldn’t, of course. No one, real or fictional, should have to endure abuse as an avenue to success. Yet, here we all are. 

By the film’s end, the women do decide, led to action by the conversations, which are sometimes soft and understanding and sometimes filled with rage. But what’s evident throughout the shifts in mood, from hopeful to harrowing and back again, is that it’s an engaged exchange in which listening is just as respected as talking. This idea is underscored in the expanse of the film as well by composer Hildur Guðnadóttir (Tár, Joker). Working alongside Polley, Guðnadóttir’s music drives the women toward their decision. The next time you find yourself debating a difficult choice, a position the patriarchy seems to perpetually place us in, perhaps ask yourself what it is you’re hearing. 

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It’s that time of the season where I measure a year’s worth of political progress by comparing steps forwards and steps back, in the hope that overall we’ve made progress.

I could fill this issue with many examples of elections, budgets, and spending plans from 2022. But I’ll settle on a few items. Starting with some good news . . .

The CTA’s Red Line Extension project. 

I’m happy to say that the year ended with Mayor Lori Lightfoot doing something right. That’s right as in correct—not as in ideology.

I’ve been critical of Lightfoot for much of 2022. But on the Red Line, I have to say thank you, Madame Mayor (and thank you City Council for overwhelmingly approving her proposal). You did what your predecessors—Mayors Emanuel and Daley—said they wanted to do, but never got around to actually doing.

That’s extending the Red Line south from where it currently stops at 95th to 130th Street, and building four new stops—at 103rd, 111th, Michigan Avenue, and near Altgeld Gardens.

The mayor and council did it by committing about $959 million in Tax Increment Financing dollars (the feds will pick up most of the rest of the cost). So finally some worthwhile economic development from the TIF scam.

Frankly, I don’t think those two aforementioned mayoral predecessors wanted to extend the Red Line, no matter how many times they said they did. Frankly, I think those predecessors saw that project as a waste of money.

So they did just about every other CTA project. They built the Pink Line. They repaired the Brown Line. They fixed up the Red Line. They built the flyover at Belmont. They rebuilt the 95th Street station, but no Red Line extension.

The extended Red Line will bring service to Washington Heights and Roseland, communities that have suffered for investment under Daley and Emanuel.

As far as I can tell, the governing principle of Daley and Emanuel was to mostly spend TIF money in areas that were already booming, thus gentrifying already gentrifying communities, while leaving lower-income communities, like Washington Heights and Roseland, to fend for themselves.

We all know what happened.

Over the last 20 years, Chicago’s Black population has drastically fallen—including in Washington Heights and Roseland.

It was demographers like Alden Loury, now an editor at WBEZ, who brought this to my attention. I remember asking Loury why Chicago’s powers-that-be did not sound the alarm about the outward Black migration.

To which he said something like,”Ben, I don’t think they saw it as a problem.”

Truer words were never spoken.

I hope extending the Red Line sparks renewal on the far south side. So, one giant step forward. On the other hand . . .

The only no vote in the council was cast by Alderperson Pat Dowell on the grounds that her near south-side ward was largely paying the city’s share of the project.

Or as she put it at a city council hearing, “Because these benefits are citywide, everyone should have skin in the game of paying for this project. This has to include the entire city.”

That’s inaccurate. TIF is a citywide tax hike. The Red Line TIF district will raise property taxes on every Chicago property—not just property in Dowell’s ward.

To say otherwise is to feed the notion that somehow 3rd Ward residents will, as the Sun-Times put it, “bear the burden” of the extension’s costs.

Again, not true. Again, every property owner’s taxes will rise for this project. Again, a TIF is a citywide tax hike. Whether she intended to or not, Alderperson Dowell contributed to Chicago’s ignorance of TIFs. 

So it’s like a quarter step back. I’ll settle for that.

Now onto the national front. Democrats defeated MAGA attempts to take control of the Senate—even picked up a seat. So that’s a big step forward—if you believe in democracy as opposed to Trumpocracy.

And yet, last week House and Senate Democrats joined their Republican counterparts to add $45 billion to the defense bill that President Biden had already requested.

Let me repeat that to make sure there is no confusion about what Democrats did.

Next year’s entire defense budget is not $45 billion—it will be about $858 billion.

No, the $45 billion is what Congress is adding to what Biden wanted to spend. Like $851 billion on bombs and guns was not enough!

That $45 billion is obviously a lot more than the $3.6 billion it will cost to extend the Red Line. They could probably extend the Red Line to Carbondale for that kind of cash.

Now, I obsessively followed the 2022 elections in many states (not just Illinois). And I don’t recall any Democrats running on platforms of upping the defense budget by $45 billion.

Never heard one of them say—we have to hold onto the House and the Senate so we can spend even more money on weaponry than what President Biden wanted to spend. As opposed to spending it on transit, schools, health care, or any of the dozens of programs that people in this country really need.

Quite the contrary: I know of activists who worked their tails off for Democrats who they hoped would cut defense.

This headline from the Sunday, December 18, New York Times print version said it all: “Bonanza for Arms Makers As Military Budget Surges.”

I don’t recall one Democratic candidate or voter saying, “We need a bonanza for arms makers!”

Certainly, I didn’t read that refrain in any of the hundreds of solicitations I received all year long from Democratic candidates.

As always, Democrats are their own worst enemies. So one step back.

Finally, on the state level . . . 

Democrats beat MAGA in every statewide race, including governor and supreme court. And all those Republican candidates managed to concede defeat without crying that the election was stolen and storming the state capitol. Call that a step forward.

As you can see, I’m really trying to look on the bright side, folks. Hope 2023 is one giant step forward for all of you.

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If you love the Deftones as much as I do, you’ve undoubtedly passionately defended them to a nu-metal naysayer. “They’re not really nu-metal,” you might argue. “Sure, they had some rap parts on their first record, but they’ve actually spent most of their career leaning into dream-pop and shoegaze influences.” (I can’t be the only person out there going to bat for the band on a fairly regular basis, can I?)

Deftones front man Chino Moreno has been open about his love of classic shoegaze, goth, and dream pop since the band broke out in the mid-90s, and they’ve pushed those elements further and further to the forefront of their alt-metal with each release. Over the years, Moreno has also used various side projects (including the trip-hoppy Team Sleep and his collaboration with former members of Isis, Palms) to explore his fascination with these styles. But he straight-up dives into them with Crosses, his mostly electronic duo with former Far guitarist Shaun Lopez. They’ve been putting out slick, catchy, industrial-tinged dream pop and witch house since 2011, and their love for those dreary, mysterious sounds runs so deep that last year they released a cover of Q Lazzarus’s dark synth-pop classic, “Goodbye Horses.” On their brand-new EP, Permanent.Radiant, gorgeous tracks of slick, airy synths and cloudy soundscapes serve as a foundation for Moreno’s signature yearning croon. These songs are deep, heavy, and beyond smooth; if your favorite parts of Deftones records are the sweet spots, then you definitely shouldn’t miss this release.

Crosses’s Permanent.Radiant is available through the artist’s website.

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Credit: Kirk Williamson

For the cover of our last print issue of 2022, we wanted to capture the spirit of the year, as we see it, in our own Reader way. We asked photographer Carolina Sanchez to see if she could find a street musician who was being ignored, a situation which many can relate to as the essence of this year: lots of work, not a lot of respect. Sanchez found the musician, Kaliq Woods, at the corner of State and Randolph, where he “usually plays the clarinet but because of how cold it was his keys froze and got stuck, so he opted into playing the drums instead.” Sanchez added, “[Woods] had a man next to him dancing most of the time, who randomly came up while he was playing the timbales and sang ‘Merry Christmas’ over and over again.”

From “Rescuing the legacy of Dancin’ Man” to our cover model’s festively dancing friend, it’s been a turbulent and surprising year for us all. Here are just a few of our favorite images that Reader stories begot this year. We look forward to bringing you more glimpses into our unique Chicago world in the next.

Starbucks baristas at five locations in Chicago have voted to unionize in recent months. Credit: Michael Izquierdo

In April, contributor Amy Qin spoke to local Starbucks baristas working to build support for a union (“Brewing solidarity”). As of August, workers at six Chicago-area stores had voted to unionize, following the wave of support for labor unions that emerged nationally in 2022.

Elmo holds a pigeon he coaxed into his hands. Credit: Lloyd DeGrane

Reader staff writer Katie Prout’s “Searching for the Pigeon Lady” (February) started as interest in a particularly legendary downtown ornithologist but swiftly grew into a series of larger questions about resilience, centered in private moments in public spaces.

“It’s a precious commodity,” says Beau O’Reilly. “This was hugely important music, not only in 1966 but in 1936. It’s how culture moved around the country,” Credit: Sarah Joyce for Chicago Reader

Beau O’Reilly, a fixture in Chicago’s theater and music scenes since the 70s, continues to perform and create opportunities for other artists. Contributor Mark Guarino talked to O’Reilly in April about theater work on the fringes for “Beau O’Reilly keeps the folk cabaret alive.”

Greg reads his poem “Thoughts of a Lonely Man” aloud from his notebook. The cat he shares with his girlfriend Stacey perches on his knee. Credit: Sarah Gelbard

In January, contributor Sarah Gelbard spoke to unhoused people and their allies (“Homeless in a pandemic-stricken Chicago”) about the conundrum of hundreds of Chicago public housing units sitting empty when there is obvious need.

Journalist Dometi Pongo curated open mics and now exemplifies the idea that one can be creative and still be themselves. Credit: ThoughtPoet

Contributor ThoughtPoet shared “#SadBoyEnergy (The Prelude)” with our readers in February: a photo essay examining what it means for Black men to suffer from depression and related stress. Multimedia journalist, host, and speaker Dometi Pongo is pictured above.

Leonard Lerer, 62, chief scientific officer of Back of the Yards Algae Sciences Credit: Matthew Gilson for Chicago Reader

For July’s “Something magic’s growing at Back of the Yards Algae Sciences,” Reader senior writer Mike Sula discovered an unlikely team of bioprospectors experimenting with algae and more. Scientist Leonard Lerer is pictured next to a spirulina photobioreactor.

Credit: Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth

After a tumultuous series of events, the Reader was able to move forward in May with its preconceived plan to shed itself of private ownership and embrace nonprofit status. The transition was not without challenges. In Apri, Reader union members led a protest outside a now-former Reader owner’s home, which ultimately helped push the process along. The demo attracted fellow journalists, longtime Reader readers, and labor comrades from other guilds. (“‘Free the Reader!’” by Elly Boes, Grace Del Vecchio, and 14 East Magazine, April)

Credit: Olivia Obineme

19-year-old Austin resident Indya Pinkard was one of several teens that writer Justin Agrelo interviewed about safety, gun violence, the expansion of the city’s curfew for young people, and more, for July’s “Young people dream up a safer summer in Chicago,” a publishing collaboration with the nonprofit newsroom The Trace.

Credit: DuWayne Padilla

Culture editor Taryn Allen spoke to members of OnWord Skate Collective this summer about plans for a film about their work (“Welcome to the skate park,” July). The group embraces skaters of all ages and abilities, and prioritizes women, trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people.

Artist Derric Clemmons stands near one of his Urban Trees art installations on Commercial Avenue in the South Chicago neighborhood on Saturday, May 21, 2022. Credit: Eddie Quiñones for Chicago Reader

In May, contributor Irene Hsiao took in the public and interactive art of southeast side native Derric Clemmons and his South Worx Art Group (“Reshaping the landscape on the southeast side”), who built structures as part of a city initiative to revitalize the area near 89th and Commercial.

Members of the band the Breathing Light perform music on the street under a pop-up tent as part of the People’s Fest in the Douglass Park neighborhood in September 2022 Credit: Kelly Garcia

Over the course of the year, Reader staff writer Kelly Garcia covered the concerns surrounding large festivals taking resources from public parks, specifically festivals in Douglass Park preventing residents from being able to use the park’s resources.

Ernie Alvarez Credit: Kelly Garcia

Garcia’s subsequent series of articles looked at the story from several angles: uncovering contracts that revealed financial donations from Riot Fest to influential alderpersons (“Donations, violations, and fees,” September), a timeline of community organizing around the issues (“Riot acts,” August), an interview with Douglass Park youth soccer coach Ernie Alvarez (“A promise worth keeping,” July), and reporting about the People’s Fest, a public event that galvanized support for the neighbors (“A performance for the people,” September).

Credit: Carolina Sanchez for Chicago Reader

Contributor Zinya Salfiti visited Central Camera in August to find out how the century-old downtown camera store has weathered fire, floods, and pandemics (“Central Camera Co. stays focused”).

Ollyvia Putri Credit: Jeff Marini for Chicago Reader

Mike Sula continued his coverage this year of innovative local food purveyors who are unjustifiably under the radar, with stories like September’s “Pastry chef Ollyvia Putri’s 20-layer cakes are legit.”

Members of the dance company Silent Threat (below) see themselves projected on the side of the Merchandise Mart during the premiere of Billiken. Credit: Kyle Flubacker

For August’s feature “Black Chicago dance culture shines at Art on the Mart,” Reader senior writer Leor Galil gifted us with histories from local Black dancers about their experiences with the famous Bud Billiken parade. Galil talked to the filmmakers and subjects of the short film Billiken, which was projected for the public as part of the Art on the Mart series.

Over a thousand people rallied in the Loop for the “We Won’t Go Back” abortion rights rally which gathered in Federal Plaza and marched throughout the Loop ending near Grant Park. The march was a response to a leaked Supreme Court opinion indicating the Roe V. Wade, which protects the right to abortion, will be overturned. Credit: Kathleen Hinkel

Reader senior writer Deanna Isaacs writes about a variety of subjects for her regular culture column. Isaacs tackled the near-total upheaval of reproductive rights that the U.S. experienced this year, including a “secret draft” of a Supreme Court ruling that was uncovered this spring (“The end of Roe,” May).

The Brewed’s decor is steeped in horror—Jason Deuchler is standing in front of a re-creation of a mural from Candyman’s lair in the original film, and he’s checking out a sandworm from Beetlejuice built for the shop’s Halloween party earlier this month. Credit: Steven Piper for Chicago Reader

Our music section’s regular Chicagoans of Note series allows our writers to interview local people who play in, work in, or otherwise inhabit Chicago’s music communities. In October, Leor Galil talked to Jason Deuchler (DJ Intel), who co-owns the horror-themed coffee shop The Brewed.

Credit: Yijun Pan for Chicago Reader

Contributor Yolanda Perdomo talked to Albany Park resident Adam Carston about Windy City Ballyhoo, his pandemic lockdown project turned social media archive of Chicago’s moviegoing past (“Now Playing: Chicago’s history in movie ads,” October).

Fans at Kehlani’s August show at the Aragon Ballroom Credit: Debbie-Marie Brown

Reader staff writer Debbie-Marie Brown immersed themselves in the fandom of R&B artist Kehlani and found a community of mostly young, mostly LGBTQ+, and all very passionate fans (“Blue water road to Chicago,” September).

Coach Shawn Sorsby shows his son the basics. Credit: Debbie-Marie Brown

In October, Debbie-Marie Brown found another passionate community—kids who love chess and compete nationally with the help of the Chicago organization A Step Ahead Chess (“Making good moves”).

Mike Moses at the Regenstein Library Credit: Clayton Hauck for Chicago Reader

For November’s “What Paul Moses Taught,” contributor Hannah Edgar talked to Mike Moses, who brought his father Paul Bell Moses’s archives to the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library, which then blossomed into a moving exhibition of family history and art.

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