Chicago Tribune – Boston Herald

‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ review: Pizza and killer animatronics? On second thought, how about tacos somewhere?

Chicago Tribune — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 19:52:02 +0000

Michael Phillips | Chicago Tribune

“Five Nights at Freddy’s” isn’t half as scary as one or two of the parent-vs.-parent brawls I witnessed a few years ago at Chuck E. Cheese’s, but that’s another story, too intense for any storytelling medium.

Let’s talk about this story. Video game creator Scott Cawthon’s Chuck E.-inspired 2014 phenomenon takes place in a decrepit Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzajoint, with the requisite ball pit, wonky electrical wiring and smell of death, with a whiff of sheet cake. Its threatening animatronic creatures — a bear, a bunny, a one-pawed fox, a face-eating robo-bird — run the place at night, and are inhabited by the disintegrating bodies and tortured souls of children who … well, spoiler there, a little late on the warning, sorry, moving on.

In the game, you take the role of night security guard Mike. You monitor the barely functional surveillance cameras and, once the robot killers come for you, you try to stay alive. There’s a labyrinth of backstory, dripped out in dribs and drabs, but Cawthon’s simple setup begot many sequels and a welter of spinoffs and subreddits and fan theories. Now it’s a movie.

And? It’s an odd one, indecisive about its tone and intentions. Full-on R-rated sadism? Half the gaming world is already mad about the movie not going in that direction. Instead, the filmmakers and screenwriters chose to squeak by with a PG-13, leaning away from five nights of steadily mounting carnage and body parts and toward a thick layer of earnest new material devoted to Mike’s horrific childhood depicted in frequent flashbacks and nightmares. These take him back, like a dream-state detective, to the Nebraska campground where Mike’s brother was abducted, never to be found.

Mike’s current life feels much the same as his dream state: stuck, bereft and looking for answers. He’s doing all he can to retain custody of his younger sister. And here we run into what the film industry has referred to for more than a century as “story problems.”

Cawthon and fellow screenwriters Seth Cuddeback and Emma Tammi (who also directed) take an earnest interest in developing the central brother-sister relationship. It works, sometimes. As Mike, Josh Hutcherson (”The Hunger Games”) draws you into a character’s sullen state of mind, persuasively, by doing very little. But there’s a ton of complication and clutter in “Five Nights at Freddy’s.”

The adaptation veers from scenes of Mike’s dream state, to the hapless crew of young thugs employed by Mike’s evil aunt (Mary Stuart Masterson, who deserves better) to discredit Mike, so she can gain custody of her niece (Piper Rubio). A kindly police officer (Elizabeth Lail) knows more about the Fazbear emporium of pain than she’s telling. And there’s the unsettling job counselor (Matthew Lillard) who sets up Mike as Fazbear’s newest night watchman.

From left, Bonnie, Freddy Fazbear and Chica in “Five Nights at Freddy’s.” (Patti Perret/Universal Pictures/TNS)

I don’t care much about neatness with most genre exercises, but this one’s pretty sludgy. I do care about, and resist, the film’s attempt to be a cuddly version of “Saw,” with faces getting sliced open by a robo-critter’s whirring saw blades. To keep the PG-13 rating intact, the camera and editor cut away just before the splurch, nearly every time. This means millions of 8-year-olds will likely be at the multiplexes this weekend, in a funk, alongside older kids and young adults steeped in nostalgia for the hours they spent at home being Mike. Current box office estimates suggest “Five Nights at Freddy’s” should make nearly double its $25 million production budget by Monday.

Cawthon has known great love and great hate online. Two years ago his political views and donations (he’s a Trump fan, in addition to being an anti-abortion Christian Republican) provoked some controversy and online blowback from former fans. In the movie, there’s a scene where Mike longs for the traditional God-fearing family taken away from him so cruelly. Hutcherson knows exactly how hard to stress this bit: just enough for it to register. The premise, meantime, of “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is entirely about the cruelty, and very likely would’ve made more sense as a straight-up R-rated splatterfest.

Then again, would I have liked a more gratuitous take on the same material? Reader, I cannot say. This one’s shorter than the “It” movies, at least. Once a child-abduction horror premise exceeds the 2-hour mark, the EXIT sign to the left of the screen starts looking better than the screen itself.

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‘FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S’

2 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for strong violent content, bloody images, and language)

Running time: 1:50

How to watch: In theaters and streaming on Peacock Thursday

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Landlord indicted on murder, hate crime in fatal attack on Palestinian American boy and stabbing of mother

Chicago Tribune — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 21:16:14 +0000

Caroline Kubzansky | Chicago Tribune

The man accused of fatally stabbing a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy and severely injuring his mother days after the Hamas attack was indicted by a Will County grand jury on hate crime, murder and other charges, prosecutors said Thursday.

Joseph Czuba, 71, faces three counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of aggravated battery and two counts of hate crime in connection with a knife attack that killed Wadea Al-Fayoume and left his mother, Hanaan Shahin, hospitalized.

Czuba, who was the family’s landlord, was pushed to attack his Muslim tenants at their shared at his unincorporated Plainfield Township home after listening to conservative talk radio discussion of the war between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas, Will County prosecutors said during his Oct. 16 court hearing.

Judge Donald DeWilkins ordered Czuba held in custody. His next court hearing is set for Monday.

Czuba is accused of acting “exceptionally brutal or heinous behavior indicative of wanton cruelty” in his alleged actions toward Wadea and Shahin, per court records.

President Joe Biden mentioned Wadea by name last week during a prime-time speech where he condemned antisemitic and Islamophobic violence in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.

Will County sheriff’s deputies responded to Shahin’s call that her landlord was attacking her with a knife the morning of Oct. 14. Officers found Shahin severely injured and Wadea stabbed 26 times.

Shahin was hospitalized at the time of her son’s funeral, which drew hundreds of people and elected officials to pay their respects.

PLAINFIELD, ILLINOIS – OCTOBER 17: Sereena Baig leaves items at a memorial in front of the home where 6-year-old Palestinian-American Wadea Al-Fayoume was stabbed to death Saturday by his landlord on October 17, 2023 in Plainfield, Illinois. His mother, Hanaan Shahin, also suffered more than a dozen stab wounds and remains hospitalized. Police have said that the family was attacked because of their Muslim faith. Today his hometown held a vigil in his memory which drew more than a thousand people. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Thousands attended a vigil to honor Wadea’s life held the day after his funeral, where many condemned “hateful rhetoric” that allegedly pushed Czuba to attack the boy and his mother.

Federal authorities including the FBI and the Department of Justice’s the civil rights division are investigating the attack.

Illinois authorities are investigating other possible hate crimes and threats against Muslims that have occurred in recent weeks, including the case of a Lombard man who allegedly threatened to shoot two Muslim men outside his apartment building. A pair of Muslim schools in Bridgeview also kept students home last week after one of the institutions received a threatening letter that referenced Wadea’s death.

Los Angeles travel guide: How to have a free yet fabulous time in the City of Angels

Chicago Tribune — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 19:29:55 +0000

Susan Manlin Katzman | Chicago Tribune

The City of Angels offers tourists a heavenly number of star-studded attractions. Many come with sky-high price tags, but not all. Some of the best sights, sounds, attractions and activities in the city are free.

Visitors can join Angelenos at play, gain an insider’s appreciation of the city and indulge in a plethora of pleasures without paying a penny.

Here’s where to go and what to do to maximize the Los Angeles experience:

Beaches

Life is a beach in LA. As if ocean, sunshine and long stretches of soft sand aren’t enough, LA beaches come with all sorts of enhancements. The beaches are free for the access, but they vary in style, substance and extracurricular activities (that may come with fees).

A sign marks the end of the historic route 66 as people walk on the Santa Monica Pier on April 30, 2021 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Daniel SLIM / AFP) (Photo by DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)

Santa Monica State Beach

All day and well into the night, the Santa Monica State Beach brims with fun. During the day, over 2 miles of sandy coastline lures beach lovers with surfing, swimming, sunbathing and a variety of sports. The 114-year-old Santa Monica Pier (the iconic end point of Route 66 — selfie anyone?) is a bright and buzzing spot from which to watch the sunset over the Pacific. The pier’s fee-based fun includes an amusement park, aquarium and food outlets.

Venice Beach

Tourists from around the world head to Venice Beach, not so much for sunbathing and swimming — although there is that, but rather to soak up the vibrant, boho spirit. Stroll along the2-plus-mile boardwalk rich with street performers, art galleries, casual food outlets and quirky souvenir shops. Gawk at the scantily dressed skaters who whiz around and the perfectly toned bodybuilders working out at Muscle Beach, an outdoor gym where the famous train. Participate in activities on the fishing pier, at the skate park, on different sports courts, or simply stroll and savor the scene.

Trails

Mellow weather. Flourishing flora and fauna. Panoramic views. LA provides the perfect setting for year-round hiking. These two exceedingly popular urban parks are filled with trails ranging from easy to challenging. Note: Best to wear sunscreen and hydrate when tackling any trail.

Tourists walk around the Griffith Observatory on the south-facing slope of Mount Hollywood in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California, on July 25, 2023. (Photo by Daniel SLIM / AFP) (Photo by DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)

Griffith Park

This city-owned park spreads over 4,200 acres at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountain range and offers hikers a broad range of excitements, including breathtaking trails leading to the Griffith Observatory (free to visit — except for planetarium shows). Griffith Park is also home to the Hollywood Sign, as well as some of its best viewpoints. Leashed dogs are welcome on the trails.

Runyon Canyon Park

Highly popular with locals, so a bit crowded (think celebrities and those who come to see celebrities), Runyon Canyon Park covers 160 acres in the heart of Hollywood. Trails offer workouts of various difficulties and steep rises yield sweeping views of Hollywood, downtown LA and even Catalina Island on clear days. Don’t miss Rock Mandala, a meditative circle designed by artist Robert Wilson. The park sports some off-leash areas for canine companions.

Art Museums

Some are large. Some are small. And most are just right to delight a variety of special interests. LA hosts a wealth of museums dedicated to different subjects. While some charge hefty fees, a few display their treasures free of charge.

Although entrance is free, these museums require advance reservations with timed entrance (available on each museum’s website). Prepare to be wowed!

Getty Center

This crown jewel of the LA art scene sits at the top of a hill in the Santa Monica Mountains in Brentwood. Visitors must park in a designated lot (for a hefty fee) at the hill’s base and take a free, four-minute tram up to the center. With more than 120,000 objects in its collection, the center’s exhibits cover a broad time frame — from the Middle Ages to today — and a wide range of subjects including illuminated manuscripts, photography, decorative arts, sculpture and painting (from Rembrandt to Manet). Captivating modern architecture, lush landscaping and spectacular views complete the picture. More information at getty.edu/visit/center

The Broad comtemporary art museum in Los Angeles, California is seen on November 15, 2021 ahead of the exhibition ‘Since Unveiling: Selected Acquisitions of a Decade’, which opens on November 20. – The Broad hosts a Diversity Apprenticeship Program, an initiative to create career opportunities for underrepresented communities in the museum field. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

The Broad

A modern architectural wonder located downtown, The Broad is a must-visit for fans of contemporary art. Galleries showcase works of more than 200 artists including such popular favorites as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons. Timed entrance tickets give access to Yayoi Kusama’s incredible Infinity Mirror Room — one of the most popular installations in Los Angeles. More information at thebroad.org

Ethnic Enclaves

The ethnic communities of LA cover the world. Take your pick: Thai Town, Chinatown, Cambodia Town and the “Littles,” such as Little Saigon, Armenia, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Moscow and many more. These are the places to explore different cultures, try special foods, shop for imports and enjoy unique festivals that express the neighborhood’s celebratory joy. Two to try:

Koreatown

The 3 square miles that make up Koreatown are packed with trendy fun. Shops, bars and particularly restaurants draw customers from all over Los Angeles. According to DiscoverLosAngeles.com, Koreatown not only houses more Koreans than anywhere else in the world outside of Korea, but also holds one of the largest concentrations of nightclubs and 24-hour businesses and restaurants in the country, and contains more large malls than any other similar-sized area in the U.S.

Little Tokyo

Little Tokyo began life in the 1880s, was recognized as a historic landmark in 1986, and remains the culture core for LA’s Japanese descendants. Covering an area of about five city blocks in downtown LA, the district holds the Japanese American Community and Cultural Center; the lovely, serene Garden of the Clear Stream; Buddhist temples; and shops selling video games and anime. Eateries specialize in Japanese delights such as ramen and sushi (the famed California roll was supposedly invented here).

Nightlife and entertainment

Yes, it is possible to go clubbing, attend concerts, discover new comedians and enjoy assorted entertainment in LA for free. Check online for free listings and tickets at TimeOut, Eventbrite and Discotech.

Only window shopping is free, but there are two areas where one can window shop and people watch — win-wins easy on the budget.

Rodeo Drive

A 2-mile street flashing famous shops, glitzy boutiques and legendary fashion houses, Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills draws the wealthy Hollywood crowd. Pretty women shop here. Celebrities with tons of money do too. Good place to see how the other half fills their closets.

The Grove and The Original Farmers Market

Referred to as an open-air mall, The Grove in LA’s Melrose neighborhood emits an upscale, small-town main street ambiance. A double-deck trolley (free rides) travels the central corridor, looping around a water fountain that dances to piped tunes of Frank Sinatra and his contemporaries. The mall offers popular retail shops (See’s Candies gives free samples — yippee), a movie theater and restaurants. Next door, The Original Farmers Market, dating to 1934, draws both locals and tourists to enjoy shopping at the stalls of gourmet food purveyors that fill the market.

Catching the Vibe

Tour downtown to see rich and diverse architectural gems. Don’t miss the shining, stunningly dramatic Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Pay tribute to celebrities at both the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in the forecourt of the nearby TCL Chinese Theatre (also known as Grauman’s Chinese Theatre).

Drive (or stroll) through Beverly Hills to see celebrity homes (from a distance).

Cruise along Mulholland Drive (avoid rush hour) for glorious views captured in many movie scenes.

Look here, there, everywhere to behold awesome street art. Sculptures sit on street corners. Installations front buildings. Murals cover walls. Graffiti brightens alleys.

Color, creativity and pizazz thrives in most neighborhoods, but particularly in Venice and downtown’s Arts District.

‘The Royal Hotel’ review: In this triumph of tension, check in at your peril

Chicago Tribune — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 20:14:44 +0000

Michael Phillips | Chicago Tribune

In “The Royal Hotel,” director Kitty Green’s gripping, grubby Australian Outback noir, the Royal Hotel is a comically unregal place lit by the dead glare of fluorescent lights, dotted with predatory eyes lurking in the shadows.

The eyes belong to the men working for the local mining company. At this remote, two-story dump in the middle of nowhere — part saloon, part boarding house for temporary workers — two American women arrive to make some quick money behind the bar. Sensible and wary Hanna, played by Julia Garner, and her more reckless, up-for-anything friend Liv, played by Jessica Henwick, (both superb) realize very quickly that they’ll be putting up with trash talk, harassment, uncertain pay schedules and worse.

They’re expected by the owner of the Royal, the frequently drunk Billy (Hugo Weaving, a long, shaggy way from “The Matrix”), to perform the usual female paradox while they’re there and the customers are thirsty: Shut up, take it and smile. “You’re driving ‘em all away with that attitude,” he warns the cautious Hanna. “The Royal Hotel” tightens its screws with every scene, taking the premise into ever-darker territory without losing its authentic sense of place and people.

Liv, whose financial duress leads to them taking this gig on a wing and a prayer, at first just wants to see some kangaroos. Hanna goes along for the ride. By the end of the first day and night in the pub, navigating a nasty but never caricatured variety of men, Hanna wants out. But she stays. There’s a harsh kind of beauty here, especially at night, with stars brighter than she’s ever seen. But in daylight or in moonlight, the sounds of fear and knife-edge trouble are everywhere.

Green co-wrote the taciturn screenplay with Oscar Redding; this is her second narrative feature (she’s made two feature-length documentaries as well). Her previous drama, “The Assistant” (2019), drew a remarkable performance from Garner as a film executive’s assistant caught in the crosshairs of a Harvey Weinstein-style predator. See that film if you haven’t; it’s a minimalist marvel of precision and perception.

The simple, sturdy plot of “The Royal Hotel” demands something other than minimalism, but Green’s sophomore triumph is no less precise than “The Assistant” in its staging, editing and perceptiveness about what women put up with most every day of their lives. Kasra Rassoulzadegan served as editor; Michael Latham’s cinematography is spot on, in seductive sunshine as well as the murk of the bar itself. Every supporting performance feels perfectly cast and shrewdly delivered, with standout work from Ursula Yovich’s Carol, the Aboriginal Australian cook whose life with the bar’s owner has plainly been a bleak one.

The film’s reception along the festival circuit has been respectful but the movie deserves more than that. I was with it right to the last line; Garner and Henwick are doing the kind of acting that looks easy but isn’t. It’s a film of flickering doubts and accumulating, justifiable paranoia.

Green has made two very different, extraordinarily efficient and compact movies in a row. That, too, may look easy but is anything but — unless you’re a filmmaker and writer of her particular gifts.

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‘THE ROYAL HOTEL’

3.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for language throughout, sexual content and nudity)

Running time: 1:31

How to watch: Now in theaters and streaming on Prime Video

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Walt Disney’s childhood home opens doors for first public tours

Chicago Tribune — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 18:41:32 +0000

Rebecca Johnson | Chicago Tribune (TNS)

CHICAGO — In Chicago’s Hermosa neighborhood, a modest two-story home sits on North Tripp Avenue. While typically unassuming, dozens of people lined up outside it Sunday, some in clothes featuring Mickey Mouse, waiting for a chance to peek inside the green and gray wood cottage.

Walt Disney’s childhood home opened to the public for the first time this weekend as part of Chicago Architecture Center’s Open House Chicago. Organizers said they hope to keep Disney’s legacy alive, give insight into how the pioneer of animated cartoon films grew up, and inspire other young people in the neighborhood to pursue their dreams.

“We are in an inner city of Chicago, so the understanding of dreaming and doing and achieving, because you truly never know who you’re going to become. You never know who you’re going to inspire,” said Angel Reyes, an ambassador for the home and Miss Illinois USA 2022.

Elias Disney, Walt’s father, purchased the property at 2156 N. Tripp Ave. in 1891. The following year he got a permit to build the two-story wood cottage for $800, and Flora, Walt’s mother, crafted the architectural plans. In early 1893, the couple and their two sons, Herbert and Raymond, moved in. Their third son, Roy, was born soon after. In a second-floor bedroom, Walter Elias Disney was born on Dec. 5, 1901.

“(Elias) was a contractor who built homes like this one, and he was the one who built this house. Flora was the one who designed it,” said Rey Colón, project director of the Walt Disney Birthplace. “Very progressive that both Flora and Elias’ names were on the deed. He didn’t just have her listed as wife. She was an equal partner with him in his business ventures.”

The tour began at the parlor on the first floor, the space where the family entertained. Colón said much of the original wood trim and walls were removed over the years, and that there was just one closet that had samples of the wood. He said they re-created the original rosettes and trim from one tree, “which we believe is the way Elias would have wanted it done.”

There’s also a colorized photo of Walt and his younger sister, Ruth, at the home in 1905 inside the parlor.

A 1905 picture of Walt Disney and his sister Ruth is displayed in the parlor as visitors tour the childhood home of Disney at the corner of North Tripp Avenue and West Palmer Street in Chicago’s Hermosa neighborhood on Oct. 15, 2023, during Open House Chicago. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

Tour guide Rich Frachey said Elias had many other jobs during his life — furniture-maker, orange farmer and even a fiddle player. Inside the parlor, Frachey said it’s easy for him to imagine him playing the fiddle or telling stories about the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago where he was a construction worker.

“All the innovations that were debuted there, including the first Ferris wheel, Cracker Jacks, Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum, a machine that would wash the dishes, elevators, typewriters and more,” Frachey said. “Did they sit in this parlor and read the book called ‘The Wizard of Oz’?”

Some biographers speculate Elias’ stories of the fair influenced Walt’s creation of Disneyland and some of its popular attractions such as “Tomorrowland,” “Frontierland” and “Main Street, U.S.A.”

The tour then went through the family’s dining room and kitchen, which included items such as a washboard, a butter churn and a rug beater. Inside what is now a closet on the first floor, Elias built a toilet, which organizers said was innovative for the time.

Upstairs, after climbing a set of steep stairs, people glimpsed at a bigger bedroom belonging to Herbert and Raymond, while Walt and Roy shared a smaller one. The home the Disney family lived in was 1,200 square feet. Later on, organizers said, additional rooms were added in the back of the home, which they now use as office space.

The Disneys moved out in 1906, relocating to Missouri. They eventually returned to Chicago in 1917 when Walt was a teenager. They lived in the North Lawndale neighborhood, and Walt attended McKinley High School.

Colón said even with Saturday’s rain, more than 550 people showed up for the tour. While attendance was less on Sunday, he still expected a sizable turnout. Before they only did private tours, he said.

According to Walt Disney Birthplace, Chicago attempted to designate the property as a historical landmark in 1991, but the owner fought the designation and won. Today, the new owners are working with the city to restore the home to its 1901 state.

Colón said there’s been around 10 years of fundraising to get the home to its current state but more contributions are needed to fully restore and furnish it. He said it’s exciting to see lots of interest in the home, and they hope to organize more tours in the future.

“We’re still trying to figure out how, how do we go about the registration process, getting people in, how often do we do it,” Colón said.

For Reyes, who was born and raised in Hermosa, the turnout was “overwhelming but in a good way.”

“Just to see how many people are still interested in knowing the front story, when Walt began and what that looked like for him, we’re definitely thrilled,” she said.

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What to know about the deadly stabbings of a Palestinian mother and her 6-year-old in Illinois

Chicago Tribune — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 16:55:25 +0000

By Chicago Tribune staff

On Saturday, a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy named Wadea Al-Fayoume was killed after being stabbed 26 times in his suburban home. His mother also suffered dozens of stab wounds, and is hospitalized as she fights for her life.

Law enforcement and authorities from Illinois’ Will County, where the attack occurred, determined it was a hate crime and that the mother and son’s landlord targeted them over the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East.

BRIDGEVIEW, ILLINOIS - OCTOBER 16: Six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume's casket is carried into a funeral service at the Mosque Foundation on October 16, 2023 in Bridgeview, Illinois. According to reports, Wadea was killed and his mother seriously wounded when her landlord, Joseph Czuba, attacked them because they were Muslim. Czuba has been arrested and charged with murder. (Photo by Kamil Krzaczynski/Getty Images)
BRIDGEVIEW, ILLINOIS - OCTOBER 16: Oday Fayoumi (R) attends the funeral service for his son, six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume, at the Mosque Foundation on October 16, 2023 in Bridgeview, Illinois. Wadea was stabbed to death and his mother seriously injured in an attack by the family's landlord, Joseph Czuba, motivated by hatred for Muslims and the fighting in Israel and Gaza, according to published reports citing authorities. (Photo by Kamil Krzaczynski/Getty Images)
BRIDGEVIEW, ILLINOIS - OCTOBER 16: Community members pray during the funeral service for six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume outside the Mosque Foundation on October 16, 2023 in Bridgeview, Illinois. Wadea was stabbed to death and his mother seriously injured in an attack by the family's landlord, Joseph Czuba, motivated by hatred for Muslims and the fighting in Israel and Gaza, according to published reports citing authorities. (Photo by Kamil Krzaczynski/Getty Images)
BRIDGEVIEW, ILLINOIS - OCTOBER 16: Community members pray during the funeral service for six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume at the Mosque Foundation on October 16, 2023 in Bridgeview, Illinois. Wadea was stabbed to death and his mother seriously injured in an attack by the family's landlord, Joseph Czuba, motivated by hatred for Muslims and the fighting in Israel and Gaza, according to published reports citing authorities. (Photo by Kamil Krzaczynski/Getty Images)
LAGRANGE, ILLINOIS - OCTOBER 16: Family and community member attend the funeral for six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume at Parkholm Cemetery on October 16, 2023 in LaGrange, Illinois. Wadea was stabbed to death and his mother seriously injured in an attack by the family's landlord, Joseph Czuba, motivated by hatred for Muslims and the fighting in Israel and Gaza, according to published reports citing police. (Photo by Kamil Krzaczynski/Getty Images)
LAGRANGE, ILLINOIS - OCTOBER 16: Family and community member attend the funeral for six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume at Parkholm Cemetery on October 16, 2023 in LaGrange, Illinois. Wadea was stabbed to death and his mother seriously injured in an attack by the family's landlord, Joseph Czuba, motivated by hatred for Muslims and the fighting in Israel and Gaza, according to published reports citing police. (Photo by Kamil Krzaczynski/Getty Images)

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The landlord, 71-year-old Joseph Czuba of Plainfield, Illinois, has been arrested and charged with multiple criminal offenses. His first court appearance was Monday, where a request for release under electronic monitoring was denied and he was ordered detained. His next hearing is in two weeks.

Take a look at our coverage of an attack that authorities have called “senseless and cowardly” and that has drawn national attention. Here’s what to know:

Who is Wadea Al-Fayoume?

Wadea Al-Fayoume was a Palestinian-American boy who lived near Plainfield with his 32-year-old mother, Hanaan Shahin. The 6-year-old who celebrated his birthday Oct. 6 was a student in Plainfield School District 202. According to relatives, Shahin had moved to the United States 12 years ago, and the boy’s father followed three years later, both escaping conflict in the Middle East. The parents are originally from the city of Beitunia in Palestine’s West Bank.

But the violence they fled found them again just days after Waeda turned 6. His father remembered the boy for his love for “everything” and “everybody.” An online fundraiser to help the family with funeral and medical expenses says Wadea “was a bright and energetic young boy who loved basketball and soccer. He liked swings and coloring. He loved his family and his friends, he loved life.”

Muslim woman stabbed in Illinois, son killed after she urged landlord to ‘pray for peace’

Who is the suspect?

When deputies from the Will County sheriff’s office responded to a 911 call Saturday morning in the 16200 block of South Lincoln Highway in unincorporated Plainfield Township, they found Joseph Czuba, 71, sitting on the ground outside his home near the driveway. He had a laceration to his forehead, a knife holster on his waist and several pocket knives at his feet, according to police and prosecutors.

For the last two years, Czuba had been renting out the ground floor of the house to Shahin and her son. Family said they had coexisted without incident. According to prosecutors, after listening to conservative talk radio and becoming “heavily interested” in the escalating conflict between Israel and Hamas, the landlord paid a visit to his Muslim tenants. He then reportedly stabbed mother and son dozens of times, killing Wadea and seriously injuring Shahin.

What are the charges?

Czuba appeared for an initial hearing at the Will County Courthouse on Monday. He faced various criminal charges, including first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of a hate crime and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

His defense attorney, Kylie Blatti of the Will County public defender’s office, requested that Czuba be released under electronic monitoring, saying he is a veteran of the Air Force, is self-employed and owns property in Plainfield and Joliet. He also suffers from medical problems, Blatti said.

Judge Donald DeWilkins denied the request, ordering Czuba held in custody. His next court hearing was scheduled for Oct. 30.

What has been the reaction?

The attack has prompted swift condemnation from elected officials across the country, including President Joe Biden, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. Federal authorities including the FBI and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice have also launched their own investigations into the attack.

“This act of hate against a Palestinian Muslim family has no place in America,” Biden wrote in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter. “As Americans, we must come together and reject Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry and hatred. I have said repeatedly that I will not be silent in the face of hate. We must be unequivocal.”

‘No place in America’: Biden, elected officials condemn stabbings of Muslim family in Illinois

‘No place in America’: Biden, elected officials condemn stabbings of Muslim family in Illinois

Chicago Tribune — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 22:38:54 +0000

The weekend stabbing death of a 6-year-old Muslim boy and wounding of his 32-year-old mother allegedly at the hands of a landlord upset about the escalating war between Israel and Hamas drew swift condemnation from politicians across Chicago and the nation.

Hours after the charges were announced Sunday, President Joe Biden said he was sickened to hear of the fatal stabbing of Wadea Al-Fayoume and the serious wounding of his mother, Hanaan Shahin.

Joseph Czuba, 71, of Plainfield, was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of hate crimes and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon in a “senseless and cowardly act,” the Will County sheriff’s office said in a news release Sunday.

Detectives were able to determine that both victims in the Saturday morning attack were targeted by Czuba “due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis,” the release said.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that he’s “heartbroken” over the attack and said the Justice Department has opened a federal hate crimes investigation into the incident. Garland said Czuba attacked the family with a military-style knife.

The Justice Department is investigating the attack and “will use every legal authority at our disposal to bring to justice those who perpetrate illegal acts of hate,” he said.

“This incident cannot help but further raise the fears of Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities in our country with regard to hate-fueled violence. The Department of Justice is focused on protecting the safety and the civil rights of every person in this country,” Garland said in a Sunday statement. “We will use every legal authority at our disposal to bring to justice those who perpetrate illegal acts of hate. No one in the United States of America should have to live in fear of violence because of how they worship or where they or their family come from.”

The attack is also being investigated by the Chicago FBI Field Office.

Noting the Justice Department investigation, Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement that “we unequivocally condemn hate and Islamophobia and stand with the Palestinian, Arab and Muslim American communities. The Biden-Harris Administration will continue working to protect our communities against hate and senseless violence.”

Following news of the stabbings, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is Jewish, released a statement condemning the stabbings and saying that the Illinois State Police had reached out to the Muslim community and other religious leaders.

“To take a 6-year-old child’s life in the name of bigotry is nothing short of evil. Wadea should be heading to school in the morning. Instead, his parents will wake up without their son. This wasn’t just a murder — it was a hate crime. And every single Illinoisan — including our Muslim, Jewish and Palestinian neighbors — deserves to live free from the threat of such evil,” Pritzker said in the statement.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was expected to attend the boy’s funeral at 1 p.m. Monday at Bridgeview’s Mosque Foundation.

“This despicable hate crime is a shameful reminder of the destructive role Islamophobia plays in our society,” Johnson wrote in a statement.

State Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid, the first Palestinian American state representative in Illinois, said the stabbings were the “result of the dehumanizing, one-sided media coverage of Palestinians and irresponsible statements from elected officials.”

“I call on President Biden, elected officials and all people of good conscience to condemn this heinous killing and to call for immediate cease-fire in Gaza so that no more of our children are killed here in Illinois or in Palestine and Israel,” Rashid said in a statement on X.

Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch said in a statement on X that “reports indicating that the crime was motivated by a bigoted misinterpretation of world events makes this tragedy a reprehensible act of hate. Our diverse state of many faiths and backgrounds is united in condemning this hateful violence and praying for the safety of all of our neighbors.”

State Rep. Bob Morgan, chair of the Illinois Legislative Jewish Caucus, said on X: “This is devastating news and must be universally condemned by all. Our Jewish and Palestinian communities in (Illinois) are already broken after this week. Illinois will never, ever accept this evil, and (we) must all do our part to keep our neighbors safe.”

U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, whose district includes Plainfield Township, where the stabbing occurred, described Wadea in a statement on X as a “beautiful Palestinian American boy” who was “taken from our community in an unacceptable attack rooted in bigotry and hate.”

“We are a community that thrives because of our diversity, and every one of our neighbors deserves to feel safe,” she said.

Will County Executive Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant said Illinois State Police officers are working with local law enforcement to monitor any potential extremist activities following the hate crime.

“At a time when tensions in the community can run high, I am asking residents to remain on alert. If you become aware of anyone who is threatening others, please contact law enforcement immediately,” she said.

Tribune staff reports.

Former child welfare worker guilty of endangerment in death of Illinois 5-year-old

Chicago Tribune — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 23:16:30 +0000

Robert McCoppin | Chicago Tribune

In what is believed to be the first successful prosecution of its kind in Illinois, a former child welfare worker was found guilty Friday of child endangerment in the beating death of 5-year-old AJ Freund in Crystal Lake, but his supervisor was found not guilty.

Carlos Acosta, who was the case investigator for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, was found guilty in McHenry County court of endangering the life or health of a child. He was found not guilty of reckless conduct.

Lake County Judge George Strickland said he could not find Acosta’s supervisor, Andrew Polovin, guilty of either charge because he did not know how much Polovin knew about AJ being abused. Strickland handled the case because all McHenry County judges recused themselves.

AJ died in April 2019 after being beaten by his mother, JoAnn Cunningham. She is serving a 35-year sentence for his murder.

The boy’s father, Andrew Freund Sr., was sentenced to 30 years in prison for convictions related to covering up the murder by burying the boy’s body in a field.

Acosta, who is free on bond, faces two to 10 years in prison or probation. He is a former McHenry County board member.

Polovin’s attorney, Matthew McQuaid, said he and his client were “grateful” for the verdict.

“I never thought he committed a crime,” McQuaid said.

He said Polovin, who was fired by DCFS, is working in another field.

This was believed to be the first successful prosecution of a child welfare worker in Illinois, McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally said.

He said AJ’s family supported the prosecution and was “relieved” by the verdict.

As for DCFS, Kenneally said he hoped it would bring accountability to the agency.

“We hope it’s a shift in the landscape,” he said. “We’ve been running across — at least as long as I’ve been here — a significant deficit in the ability of DCFS to investigate these cases and to get us accurate information and to help us keep children safe.”

The case centered on events that occurred Dec. 18, 2018, four months before AJ’s death, when police called Acosta to investigate AJ’s possible child abuse.

At that time, Cunningham had called police to report her ex-boyfriend had stolen her cellphone and her suboxone, a drug used to treat heroin addiction.

When Crystal Lake police responded, Officer Kimberley Shipbaugh reported that the house was “disgusting,” with a ripped-up floor and ceiling, broken and open windows, and feces and urine throughout. When she asked about a large bruise on AJ’s hip, she said the hairs on her arm stood up when the mother prompted AJ to agree that the dog did it.

Immediately suspecting abuse, the officer took AJ into protective custody.

Later that day, when a doctor asked how the bruise happened, the boy told her, “Maybe someone hit me with a belt. Maybe Mommy didn’t mean to hurt me.”

The doctor recommended that a physician trained in child abuse conduct a more thorough examination and that AJ not be released to his mother. But Acosta ended protective custody, and let AJ go home with his father, with no further medical exam.

The judge found that Acosta’s reports were “dishonest” by repeatedly omitting important warning signs of potential abuse, such as the mother’s mental illness, apparent recent drug use, marks on AJ’s face, and terrible living conditions.

The case should have been viewed in the context of the family’s long-standing dysfunction, the judge said. Cunningham had lost custody of AJ for 18 months when she gave birth to him with opioids and benzodiazepines in their bodies. She had a history of heroin use, as recently as March of 2018, had repeated calls to the police for domestic violence against AJ’s father, had repeatedly threatened suicide, and previously lost custody of a foster child.

Strickland said Acosta’s failures were a proximate cause of AJ’s death, and called the explanation that the dog caused the bruise “laughable.”

“This is a refusal to investigate,” the judge said.

Even if DCFS workers were overloaded with cases, as the defense suggested, they should have gotten help from the police, prosecutors, doctors, and the Children’s Advocacy Center to look into the case, the judge said.

“I know that you weren’t supervising anything,” the judge told Polovin. He particularly ridiculed Polovin’s comment in a text message about AJ’s bruise being caused by a dog, “That looks nasty, but if that’s what the kid says.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you completely abdicated your responsibility in this case,” the judge told Polovin. “However, because I don’t know exactly what you knew and when you knew it, I cannot find you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The judge said he was “haunted” by videos of AJ’s mother repeatedly taunting her son about how he might report her to authorities.

“At the end of the day … he was failed by the adults in his life,” the judge said. “He died, he was tortured to death. He deserved due process. AJ never got due process from DCFS. He died suffering, and I hold the two of you and DCFS responsible for that.”

Dorothy Hoffner, 104, dies one week after setting skydiving record: ‘She was just indefatigable’

Chicago Tribune — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 18:23:44 +0000

By Jake Sheridan, Chicago Tribune

In the days before Dorothy Hoffner was scheduled to break the world record to become the oldest skydiver ever, she dreamed she was in free fall. The sensation woke her up, she said.

A week after setting the record, the 104-year-old has finally landed. She died peacefully in her sleep Monday, her close friend Joe Conant told the Tribune.

The death of the dear friend he called “grandma” came unexpectedly, he said.

“She was just indefatigable. She just kept going,” Conant said.

He remembered Hoffner, a lifelong Chicagoan, for her lively spark and eagerness to talk with other people. She was witty and with it in her old age, he said.

And, indeed, the world met her indomitable spirit last week. News of her record skydive spread alongside pictures and video of her jump. She smiled as she fell, goggles protecting her determined eyes.

Dorothy Hoffner, 104, gets up after her jump on Oct. 1, 2023. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

When Hoffner landed from the 13,500-foot fall, she popped up quickly, grabbed her walker and shuffled over to the crowd that had just cheered on her historic achievement.

“Age is only a number, ya’ know?” she told reporters.

The incredible feat gave Hoffner the perfect opportunity for one of her last pranks. The day after she jumped, family came to visit her at her Brookdale Lake View senior living community. She hadn’t told them anything about her skydiving.

When they arrived, Hoffner handed them a copy of the Chicago Tribune. She was on the front page, parachuting to Earth in a large photo.

“Chicagoan sets record as oldest skydiver,” the headline read.

“Dorothy, you never told us you went skydiving!” her family said, according to Conant.

“Well, you never asked!” Hoffner replied.

Millions of people heard of Hoffner’s story. A viral sensation, the centenarian became the subject of a New York Times article, the target of a late-night TV joke and a darling of cable morning shows. She appeared in a story written by a Chinese outlet and appeared on a Mexican broadcast.

The media attention at first irked Hoffner. She told the Tribune weeks before her jump that she planned to bring a cold steak to Skydive Chicago. She planned to sock Conant in the eye for spreading word of the record attempt, and he’d need to ice it, she joked.

“She wasn’t doing it because of the world record. She was doing it because she wanted to go skydiving,” Conant said.

But although Hoffner may have struggled to understand how far her inspiring story spread — after all, she didn’t own a smartphone — she savored her newfound popularity, Conant said. Each interview became an opportunity for the people lover to chat and make a new friend.

She was getting requests for around five interviews per day. A German magazine had flown a reporter and photographer to Chicago and planned to have dinner with her Monday, Conant said.

The 104-year-old hadn’t seemed to age at all in the last decade, he said. She never napped or canceled plans.

“It came as quite a shock,” he said of her death. “She gave an incredible amount of her spirit and life to all of us, and it inspired all of us.”

Conant had expected her to keep living. He had even hoped they’d skydive again, he said Tuesday morning.

But when asked after her jump what she hoped to do next, Hoffner shared a desire to ride in a hot-air balloon. She wanted to go up.

Funeral arrangements are expected in early November, Conant said.

Almost 1,000 migrating birds die after crashing into Chicago building, a 40-year record

Chicago Tribune — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 00:05:48 +0000

Nara Schoenberg, Jake Sheridan | Chicago Tribune

At least 960 migrating birds, the highest number on record, died Thursday in “massive carnage” at McCormick Place Lakeside Center, according to David Willard, a retired bird division collections manager at the Field Museum.

Birds were crashing into windows even as monitors collected the casualties, Willard said.

“It was just discouraging as can be,” said Willard. “You’re looking at a rose-breasted grosbeak that, if it hadn’t hit a Chicago window, would have made it to the Andes of Peru.”

Willard blamed the worst day in 40 years of monitoring on an array of factors, including weather patterns, badly timed rain and lit windows at Lakeside Center.

First, there was a stretch of time with few winds out of the north, which left a lot of birds backed up and ready to migrate: “Sometimes, it’s like ‘now or never,’ and they go,” Willard said.

Then, when the flight began, it was huge. One local birder who was out Thursday morning told Willard that he hadn’t seen anything equal to it in 40 years. Another birder said he saw 100,000 birds move past Promontory Point in Hyde Park. Wrigleyville resident Nathan Goldberg told the Tribune he saw roughly 172,000 birds overhead in under four hours.

Rains early in the morning may have driven the waves of birds lower to the ground — and closer to danger.

And then there were the windows at Lakeside Center. It’s estimated that a billion birds die crashing into windows in the United States every year, Willard said.

Thursday was also a record day for Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, which found about 450 dead birds and rescued 300 injured birds, according to Director Annette Prince.

“We’re talking about irreplaceable birds that are a critical part of a healthy environment,” Prince said. “They’re already declining significantly and for them to die needlessly at the feet of all these buildings as they did today — it’s a tragedy.”

There are fixes for bird-building collisions, Willard said, including bird-friendly windows, but the issue tends to attract more attention than action. In Chicago, a City Council ordinance requiring bird safety measures in many new buildings passed in 2020, according to Prince, but has not yet been implemented.

The dead birds at Lakeside Center were photographed and taken to the Field Museum, where they will be prepared as scientific specimens and used in studies.

Many were palm warblers and yellow-rumped warblers, colorful little songbirds that are common in Chicagoland in spring and fall.

Willard said that monitors at Lakeside Center generally find zero to 15 dead birds on an average day.

In the worst days of the 40-year monitoring project, 100 to 200 birds were found dead.

The signs of collision lingered in the window of a River West cafe Friday morning: A single, smudged feather was stuck to the glass.

Jennifer E. Bell had just finished a morning shift searching for birds dead and alive when she walked into the cafe. She went outside to examine the lingering feather as she waited for her coffee to brew.

When the Chicago Bird Collision Monitor volunteer came back in, she produced from her refrigerator bag a ziplock baggie. It held a small, green-tinted ovenbird. She had already turned in her finds from the day — a living woodcock with a bleeding beak, four more surviving warblers and a half-dozen dead birds — but found this last one on her walk home.

“You see it’s got the spot, and then it’s got two lines on his head, and then it’s got a little rusty color,” she said.

Bell put the dead bird back in the bag. She didn’t want to freak out any customers, she said.

The adult education professor takes on bird monitoring shifts in her free time. She gets up at 4:45 a.m. to start her hunt for the fallen. Waves of birds typically arrive in Chicago just as the sun rises, she said.

She saw calls for help amid Thursday’s onslaught, she said. After teaching class, she responded to a hotline report of a bird down near a River West school. It was a kingfisher.

“He was alive,” Bell said.

She put the bird in a Trader Joe’s paper bag with paper towels at the bottom. She left the bag in her bathroom overnight — the perfect dark, quiet place for the bird to recover — and dropped it off to be taken to the Willowbrook Wildlife Center in west suburban Glen Ellyn on Friday morning.

The center receives, rehabilitates and releases many injured birds, she said. Some might have a concussion, others brain swelling or broken wings. Paper bags containing avian survivors crowded space in a photo that the center posted on Facebook to show Thursday’s toll.

“It was a truly devastating day,” the wildlife center wrote in the post.

Sometimes, Bell keeps dead birds in her freezer. The ones lucky to be alive might sit in bags on her bathroom counter. Her son and boyfriend have been understanding about the space that her lifesaving hobby takes up in their apartment.

Bell was trained to save birds in March, at the same time her mother was living with her and undergoing cancer treatment. Her mom died, she said, and the experiences have since intertwined. Now, as she makes her morning rounds searching for birds, she hears from the construction workers and building managers who know to keep an eye out for her.

“When I’m taking time to explore the city, I’m doing it for a purpose,” she said.

As she left the cafe and headed home, Bell kept her eyes peeled. Suddenly, a lump appeared ahead on the Milwaukee Avenue sidewalk.

“That could be a bird right there,” she said.

She walked closer.

“Yep.”

The tiny creature was lying on its side. Its legs hovered unnaturally in the air. It didn’t look good.

Nonetheless, Bell, who has been trained to always assume the birds she finds are living, took out her white net. She placed the net over the warbler and touched it. The feel confirmed what she already knew.

“He’s dead,” she said.

nschoenberg@chicagotribune.com

jsheridan@chicagotribune.com

Dick Butkus, legendary Chicago Bears linebacker and Hall of Famer, dies at 80

Chicago Tribune — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 23:09:33 +0000

Fred Mitchell | Chicago Tribune

Dick Butkus, the player who perhaps best epitomized the tough and determined identity of the Chicago Bears, has died, the Tribune confirmed Thursday. He was 80.

The Butkus family said Thursday he died “peacefully in his sleep overnight at home” in Malibu, California.

A product of Chicago’s working-class South Side and the University of Illinois, Butkus became a fierce Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker before embarking on a modest but enduring television and acting career in Hollywood.

“After football, it was difficult for me to find what I liked second best,” Butkus once told the Tribune. “Football was always my first love. That certainly didn’t mean I couldn’t find something else. And the proof of the pudding is where I have ended up today.

“I guess I could have been one of those guys who didn’t prepare to quit. But things happened and through hard work I found out that, hey, there are other things besides football.”

In 2019, the Tribune ranked Butkus No. 2 in a list of the 100 greatest Bears.

“Dick was the ultimate Bear, and one of the greatest players in NFL history. He was Chicago’s son,” George McCaskey said in a statement Thursday. “He exuded what our great city is about and, not coincidently, what George Halas looked for in a player: toughness, smarts, instincts, passion and leadership. He refused to accept anything less than the best from himself, or from his teammates. When we dedicated the George Halas statue at our team headquarters, we asked Dick to speak at the ceremony, because we knew he spoke for Papa Bear.

“Dick had a gruff manner, and maybe that kept some people from approaching him, but he actually had a soft touch. His legacy of philanthropy included a mission of ridding performance enhancing drugs from sports and promoting heart health. His contributions to the game he loved will live forever and we are grateful he was able to be at our home opener this year to be celebrated one last time by his many fans.”

Butkus, whose playing career was cut short because of multiple knee injuries, left the Bears with bitter feelings.

In 1974, Butkus filed a lawsuit, asserting that the Bears knowingly encouraged him to keep playing when he should have had surgery on his knees. The litigation caused friction between Butkus and Bears owner George Halas.

The parties eventually reached an out-of-court financial settlement and the relationship between Butkus and the Bears franchise improved over the years.

Born Richard Marvin Butkus on Dec. 9, 1942, he was the youngest of nine children of Lithuanian immigrants. His father, Don, was an electrician. And his mother, Emma, worked in a laundry. Butkus grew up in the Roseland neighborhood and played high school football for coach Bernie O’Brien at Chicago Vocational.

CHICAGO, IL – SEPTEMBER 24: Former Chicago Bear player and Hall of Fame member Dick Butkus watches from the sidelines as the Bears take on the Pittsburgh Steelers at Soldier Field on September 24, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

At Illinois, Butkus played center and linebacker (1962-1964) and was a unanimous All-American, in 1963 and 1964. In 1963 Butkus won the Chicago Tribune Silver Football as the Big Ten’s Most Valuable Player. In 1964, he was named the American Football Coaches Association Player of the Year. Butkus finished sixth in Heisman Trophy balloting in 1963 and third in 1964. Butkus wound up his college career with 374 tackles.

He was a first-round draft pick (No. 3 overall) of the Bears in 1965. Another future Hall of Famer, Gale Sayers, also was selected in that first round by the Bears, making it one of the most productive drafts by one team in NFL history.

The Denver Broncos of the then-fledgling American Football League, also drafted Butkus in the first round in 1965.

Butkus’ status as one of the greatest of all time is remarkable considering he never made the playoffs and enjoyed just two winning seasons in his nine-year career.

He was just that good — and ferocious.

Butkus’ highlight reels still are shocking for their violence, tapping into a part of himself that even the most hardened football players find difficult to reach. He simply had no regard for his opponents.

Rams defensive end Deacon Jones, a Hall of Famer and one of the most feared defensive players ever, once said: “I called him a maniac. A stone maniac. He was a well-conditioned animal, and every time he hit you, he tried to put you in the cemetery, not the hospital.”

But Butkus was more than just a hard-hitting linebacker. He also was deftly skilled in pass covering, racking in 22 interceptions.

Butkus started all 119 games he played. He was named first-team All-Pro five times and second-team once and he was voted to the Pro Bowl after his first eight seasons. He’s the Bears’ all-time leader with 27 fumble recoveries.

Butkus was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 1978. In 1994, the jersey numbers of Butkus (51) and Sayers (40) were retired by the Bears during a stormy halftime ceremony at Soldier Field.

The Butkus Foundation was formed to focus on his charitable endeavors. His most passionate initiative was the “I Play Clean” campaign, which concentrates on educating young athletes about the dangers of using steroids.

The Butkus Award was established in 1985 to recognize the top linebackers in high school, college and the NFL each year. The award also uses service to the community as part of its criteria.

Fred Mitchell is a former Chicago Tribune sports writer. Will Larkin, also formerly of the Tribune, contributed.

In Shawnee National Forest, a debate swirls around how to best protect trees amid climate change and wildfires

Chicago Tribune — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 17:50:43 +0000

Karina Atkins | Chicago Tribune (TNS)

The Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois is a mosaic of towering trees, lush wetlands and commanding rock formations that are the native habitat for a wealth of plants and animals, including 19 species of oaks.

The forest is also a microcosm of an emergent national debate about how North America should manage public lands as wildfires burn through Canada, Hawaii and Louisiana. Climate change is catalyzing extreme weather events and drying ecosystems, making forests increasingly vulnerable.

“It’s impossible to take our hands all the way off. We’ve caused this climate change. We’ve introduced invasive species. We’ve put out historic wildfires. We’ve carved up the forest with roads. So, our influence on our forests is inescapable now,” said Chris Evans, a forest research specialist at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

But the U.S. Forest Service and environmentalists have opposing philosophies about how to tend to the Shawnee and other forests in the face of the climate crisis.

The Forest Service wants to take a more active role in encouraging woodland health and mitigating wildfire risk while many environmentalists want to create preserves where nature can heal itself.

The federal agency’s primary goal is to regenerate native ecosystems and increase biodiversity lost to poor farming practices and fire suppression dating back to the mid-19th century.

“If we don’t actively reintroduce disturbances using tools such as fire and timber harvest in this ecosystem, we will lose a community that is disproportionately important for wildlife,” said Michael Chaveas, forest supervisor of the Shawnee and the Hoosier National Forest in Indiana.

To encourage new tree growth, the Forest Service has invited timber companies to log parcels of both forests, a practice environmentalists in Illinois have encountered before.

In 1990, John Wallace left his career as a public land manager in Carbondale and dedicated his life to stopping commercial activity in the Shawnee. As part of a 79-day occupation of a logging site, he tethered himself to a log skidder with a bike lock. Authorities had to forcefully remove him with a blowtorch and arrested him. His protests eventually helped lead to a 17-year injunction on logging that was lifted in 2013.

Today, Wallace once again sees timber lorries driving into Illinois’ only national forest, and he has revived the fight to keep them out, this time with climate change front and center.

The mature oaks in the 289,000-acre forest must be left alone so they can optimally sequester carbon and the forest can naturally heal from human disturbances, according to Wallace and his allies at the Shawnee Park and Climate Alliance.

These environmentalists are campaigning to transfer oversight of the Shawnee from the Forest Service to the National Park Service, whose mission to preserve natural ecosystems puts a near-total ban on for-profit resource extraction.

Under the proposal, popular destinations such as Garden of the Gods would become a national park with the strictest land use regulations. The rest of the Shawnee would become the nation’s first preserve created to mitigate climate change. Public hunting, backcountry camping and other noncommercial recreational uses would be permitted, but trees would be left intact.

“Climate change is happening fast and we need to take drastic action. … We need to really protect and encourage natural ecosystems for their ability to sequester and store carbon,” Wallace said.

A climate preserve

Healthy forests offset greenhouse gases, which are the main driver of climate change, by absorbing more carbon than they release. All U.S. forests combined absorb more than 10% of annual domestic greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Biden administration.

However, whether forests are carbon sinks or emit carbon depends on how they are managed. Large, mature trees sequester the most carbon, trees release carbon when they are cut down and fires emit carbon.

The Alliance, which is supported by the cities of Carbondale and Murphysboro and the Illinois Audubon Society, is part of a growing movement to leave forests alone.

In Indiana, local opposition has mounted against Forest Service plans to ramp up logging and prescribed burning in the Hoosier forest. Last month in Oregon, a federal judge found a Trump-era rule change allowing large trees in the Pacific Northwest to be harvested violates several laws. And, a week ago, a coalition of 28 environmental groups sent the Forest Service a letter opposing a logging project in Wisconsin’s Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, citing concerns that it does not align with the Biden administration’s latest environmental recommendations.

The Biden administration has recognized mature and old-growth forests as “critical carbon sinks.” In April, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management created an initial inventory of these forests, following an executive order to protect them from climate change threats and enhance carbon sequestration.

The Alliance’s campaign builds on this movement by pushing to establish the first national preserve explicitly intended to safeguard mature trees to tap into their carbon sequestration potential. First, Congress would have to pass legislation to transfer the forest to the Park Service.

However, there is no consensus about how much primacy should be given to protect mature trees.

Forests are complex ecosystems and a sole focus on preserving older trees to optimize carbon sequestration is shortsighted, according to Eric Holzmueller, a forestry professor at Southern Illinois University. Trees are simultaneously dying and growing at different rates, and these rates change over time, making it difficult to project sequestration levels.

“It is a challenging puzzle in that there’s not a real clear answer. (Carbon sequestration) can be complicated and no one has really looked at the details of how the proposed management actions would either help the forest accumulate carbon or not,” he said.

Visitors watch the sunset over the Mississippi River valley from LaRue Pine Hills Inspiration Point on the western edge of the Shawnee National Forest, Aug. 30, 2023. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

Before determining whether and where to allow old trees to grow without disturbances, Holzmueller says more research must be done to determine how much carbon the Shawnee is currently storing and if parts of the forest are sequestering more than others.

Holzmueller also expressed concern that the Alliance is prioritizing carbon sequestration at the expense of promoting biodiversity and resilience to unpredictable natural disasters like storms, floods, invasive insect outbreaks and fires that could result in massive tree loss.

‘Huge fire risk issue’

Climate change demands that wildfires of unprecedented intensity be confronted in new places.

“These fires and the way that they are behaving right now are not going to be as extreme as they are going to be in the next decade. We have yet to see the full fruition of climate change come to light and how it’s going to influence wildfire behavior,” said Kimiko Barrett, lead wildfire researcher and policy analyst at nonprofit research group Headwaters Economics.

Though it does not have a history of large wildfires, southern Illinois is not excluded from this increased threat.

“We have a huge fire risk issue here, and just because we’re in a humid part of the world, we think that would never happen to us, but it can happen. Look around the country,” said Charles Ruffner, another professor of forestry at Southern Illinois University.

The unprecedented and devastating fires experienced in Canada, Maui and Louisiana this year were perpetuated by excessive heat and dryness.

Garden of the Gods Wilderness area is framed by sandstone geologic structures on the eastern edge of the Shawnee National Forest, Aug. 31, 2023. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

The Forest Service uses prescribed burns to reduce flammable vegetation in the Shawnee, but the Alliance say these fires, combined with logging, are actually making the Shawnee drier and more fire-prone.

The Shawnee’s forest floor is naturally very moist, which has historically made it less vulnerable to large fires like those seen in the West. But, logging trees inevitably leaves behind leaf litter and fallen branches. It also opens the canopy, allowing more sunlight to reach the forest floor. The sun then dries out the leaves and branches that would decompose under natural moist conditions, creating prime fuel for fire.

While prescribed burns do reduce the fuel load, the first thing to grow back after a fire is herbaceous growth, which dies in the winter and becomes more fuel for fires.

While Ruffner and other local forestry experts acknowledge the potential for prescribed fires and logging to dry the forest floor, they say that a more likely and dangerous scenario is that the Midwest will experience a large drought.

“If we had a serious drought that lasted two to three years and killed a lot of that midstory, we would have communities that would lie in parallel to the same thing that we saw in Maui and Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in 2016 around the Great Smoky Mountains,” said Ruffner.

During a severe drought in 2016, wildfires burned more than 10,000 acres in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which has similar forest conditions to the Shawnee. More than 14,000 residents and tourists were forced to evacuate and more than 2,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. In the deadliest fire in the United States in more than a century, at least 97 people were killed and 2,000 structures destroyed in August in Maui, where exceptionally high winds and dry conditions had been reported.

Over the last 10 years, the Forest Service has burned an average of 9,233 acres per year in the Shawnee to reduce fuel loads, with many acres being burned multiple times over a span of several years.

Ruffner said more burning is needed in strategically selected locations to thin the forest and remove understory brush.

Creating a climate preserve where trees are left intact is going to be counterproductive to mitigating the Shawnee’s “huge fire risk issue,” according to Ruffner.

Further, he and Barrett stressed that communities must not only think about how they manage their forests but also how they prepare their residents.

“People, communities and neighborhoods need to be better prepared for wildfires, but to do so requires a fundamental and significant upfront investment in how, where and under what conditions homes are placed in harm’s way,” Barrett said.

Since wildfires are uncommon, few communities in southern Illinois have community wildfire protection plans to mitigate fire risk. These plans would include practical measures like using fire resistant building materials, developing communications plans and thinning brush along highways to prevent fires from spreading onto the road.

Commercial interests

Throughout the Shawnee, swaths of barren land break up dense forest. On the edge of these logging sites, piles of trunks wait to be loaded onto timber lorries and taken to mills in Kentucky and Missouri. These lorries have overtaken roads that used to be dominated by hikers and horseback riders, according to Wallace.

John Wallace with the Shawnee Forest Defense inspects the slash, debris left from a logging operation, at a timber sale on the Waterfall Trail on the western end of the Shawnee National Forest near Murphysboro, Illinois, Aug. 30, 2023. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

A tree marked to be harvested at a timber sale on the Waterfall Trail on the western end of the Shawnee National Forest near Murphysboro, Illinois, Aug. 30, 2023. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

When the injunction was lifted in 2013, 17,200 cubic feet of timber were harvested, or the equivalent volume of just under one-fifth of an Olympic-sized swimming pool, according to the Forest Service. In 2022, that figure had increased to 712,100 cubic feet, or the equivalent of eight Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Nested under the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Forest Service’s mission is to ensure forest “health, diversity and productivity.” It must balance the many benefits of the forest, including providing natural resources like timber.

“Storing carbon is one of many goals for a healthy, resilient forest,” Chaveas said.

But this mandate to make the forest hardy and profitable is inherently conflicting and not in the best interest of residents, members of the Alliance say.

The Forest Service gives contracts to the highest-bidding logging companies, many of which come from out of state.

Communities would see more benefit from the Shawnee if it were managed by the Park Service because the agency’s mission to preserve the forest for “enjoyment, education, and inspiration” would boost tourism, according to Alliance.

The economy in southern Illinois has historically centered on coal. As the industry declines, Murphysboro Mayor Will Stephens believes the creation of a national park and preserve could spark renewed interest in the region and revive the economy.

“We have to have a bias toward action in rural America, to try to find ways to make our communities vibrant and multidimensional so that when we go to market them in a regional or national way, people will make a decision to come see us instead of seeing somebody else,” he said.

In rural West Virginia, where the economy also suffered from the fall of coal, the establishment of the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve in 2020 brought in $96 million in economic impact in 2022, including more than 1,000 new jobs.

The Forest Service does not have an economic analysis of commercial logging, but Chaveas said “Southern Illinois clearly sees economic benefits from the projects on the forest.”

Even if the timber companies are not from Illinois, they hire loggers, equipment operators and truck drivers who are local. A portion of the timber sales also goes into the Secure Rural Schools Program, a federal program to maintain local schools and roads in areas where the tax base is limited by federal land.

Nevertheless, “maximizing revenue or focus on commercial interests do not factor into our decisions or actions,” Chaveas said.

Each harvest site is selectively chosen in the best interest of the forest, he said.

Restoring biodiversity

Restoring the Shawnee to its conditions pre-westward expansion is a priority for the Forest Service, according to its latest Forest Management Plan published in 2006.

“Our forests are not prepared for the shocks of climate change largely due to the legacy of land use,” Chaveas said.

When settlers arrived in the mid-19th century, they cleared large sections of the forest to plant corn, potatoes, wheat and oats. Over time, poor farming practices and over-logging made the soil infertile and southern Illinois entered a period of extreme economic decline.

The federal government established the Shawnee National Forest in 1933 in an effort to restore the forest and spur the depressed economy. However, the subsequent reforestation process happened relatively quickly, resulting in further loss of the native landscape.

Pines, which were introduced to control erosion, overtook native oaks in many areas. At the same time, suppression had become the dominant fire management strategy. Small, naturally occurring wildfires were extinguished before they could serve their ecological function of clearing the understory so sunlight could hit the forest floor.

Oaks need sunlight to grow so, over time, young oaks were replaced by maple and beech trees that thrive in shady conditions. Wildlife that find habitats in oaks suffered alongside the declining oak population.

Combined, the legacy of American settlement resulted in a forest that lacks diversity in age and composition.

“If you just let a forest kind of drive into a low diversity system that’s dominated by just a few species, there’s less species to adjust. Maintaining diversity as much as possible allows for more adaptation and more adjustment to climate change,” said Evans, the forestry specialist at U. of I.

By logging pines and mature oaks to open up the canopy and burning to clear the understory, the Forest Service says it is encouraging the growth of young oaks, which Chaveas points out are more efficient than mature trees at sequestering carbon.

However, even if they can sequester carbon at a faster rate, young trees have significantly less capacity to store carbon than older ones. The trees that are cut in the process also release carbon back into the atmosphere.

“It takes a forest that’s been cleared 10 to 30 years to regrow and become a carbon sink again. So, it’s giving up more carbon than it’s sequestering for 10 to 30 years and that’s no good. We don’t have time for that,” Wallace said.

Recent studies of the Shawnee and nearby deciduous forests also found that forest-clearing has not resulted in successful regeneration of oaks.

“The best way to regenerate oaks is to keep mature, acorn-producing oaks standing and not to use heavy equipment where young oaks can be found,” said Wallace, citing concerns that the machinery could damage young oaks.

The road ahead

The intense wildfires this summer forced the country to confront the delicate relationship between forests and worsening climate change.

The Chicago area experienced it intimately as smoke from Canada’s wildfires obscured the skyline on multiple days in June and July. On June 27, Chicago had the worst air quality of any major city in the world because of the fires, according to air quality monitoring site IQAir.

And those fires were over a thousand miles away.

John Wallace, with Shawnee Forest Defense, examines harvested trees at the Bullwinkle timber sale of the Lee Mine project near Karbers Ridge on the eastern end of the Shawnee National Forest, Aug. 31, 2023. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

As the Forest Service continues logging and burning projects in the Shawnee, the Alliance is crafting legislation. Members hope to introduce a bill to create Shawnee National Park and Climate Preserve on Capitol Hill by April 8, the date of the next total solar eclipse.

Crowds gathered in the Shawnee six years ago when it was deemed one of the best places to watch the Great American Eclipse of 2017.

“Everybody told me — all these visitors — ‘We had no idea this place is here. What a hidden gem! Who knew that the Shawnee was so special?’” Wallace recalled.

The forest is expected to be a prime location again for the 2024 eclipse, and this time, when visitors marvel at its beauty, he hopes it will inspire them to join the campaign to preserve it.

Ultimately, Alliance members realize that protecting the Shawnee alone will not result in enough carbon sequestration to make a significant dent in greenhouse gas emissions. But, they hope their campaign will inspire others to pursue similar efforts.

“It isn’t going to solve our climate problem, but taking the first step is always the most difficult one when it comes to change and the Shawnee is the perfect candidate,” Wallace said.

Column: The Hollywood writers’ strike is over. What happens now?

Chicago Tribune — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 18:22:24 +0000

By Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune

Now that the strike by the Writers Guild of America, which began in May, appears to be over, what happens now?

The WGA’s nearly 12,000 members have until Oct. 9 to ratify the contract. Here are some of the details, as outlined on the WGA website:

Baseline minimum wages will go up 5% once the contract is ratified. They will go up an additional 4% in the spring of 2024 and 3.5% the following year.
Artificial intelligence was a major sticking point and here’s what both sides agreed to: “AI can’t write or rewrite literary material, and AI-generated material will not be considered source material under the (contract), meaning that AI-generated material can’t be used to undermine a writer’s credit or separated rights.”
There will be a new viewership-based streaming pay bonus applied to TV shows and movies “that are viewed by 20% or more of the service’s domestic subscribers in the first 90 days of release.”
That also means streamers have agreed to provide to the WGA, “subject to a confidentiality agreement, the total number of hours streamed, both domestically and internationally, of self-produced high budget streaming programs (e.g., a Netflix original series).” That’s a relatively limited slice data (streamers use all kinds of metrics to assess value, including things like completion rate) but it is the first time any amount of streaming transparency has been codified in a contract. For the rest of us who won’t be privy to this confidential information, the data may still be murky.

Up next is getting a contract for actors, represented by SAG-AFTRA, who remain on strike. WGA members are likely to continue picketing with them, though it is unclear whether or not writers will return to work even if actors are still on strike.

Striking WGA (Writers Guild of America) members picket with striking SAG-AFTRA members outside Netflix studios on September 22, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Chances are, a deal with actors will happen quickly as well. Everyone wants to get back to work and if the studios were motivated enough to agree to a mutually agreeable contract with writers after all this time, it’s probably safe to assume they’re ready to wrap this up with actors too.

Once that happens, that means crew members — who have also been out of work during much of the strike — will be back on the job again. So this is good news for everyone working in the film industry, including exhibitors who are probably breathing a sigh of relief as well.

Talk shows — late-night and daytime — will likely be back on TV first. “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” returns with new episodes Monday, Oct. 2. One has to wonder what the atmosphere will be like for returning staff at “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” after allegations of a toxic workplace were reported earlier this month, and at “The Drew Barrymore Show,” after the host initially planned to move forward with her show earlier this month despite the strike, only to change her mind after the decision personally garnered her bad press and pushback from the WGA.

As for scripted series, it will take a little time for things to ramp back up. On network TV, we probably won’t see new episodes of weekly shows returning until sometime in the new year. Instead of a typical 22-episode season for shows such as “Chicago Fire” and the like, expect a 13-episode season starting in the winter. In terms of writers getting the season mapped out and those first scripts polished and ready to shoot, the numbers I’m hearing are in the 8 to 10-week neighborhood.

On the streaming side, it means every show that has halted production — including “Stranger Things” — will resume once actors are also free to return to work. Shows that were in development but paused during the strike are also back in the game. Streaming is a precarious business and there’s always the chance that executives will decide to simply move on from any number of projects that were in various stages of development when the strikes began. Then again, streamers also have a pipeline problem: They don’t have an endless backlog of new shows, which they’re going to need in 2024, even if that number will be significantly lower than in years past.

‘Young Love’ review: Oscar-winning short becomes an animated series on Max

Chicago Tribune — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 18:19:53 +0000

By Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune

Nearly dialogue-free, the Oscar-winning, six-minute 2019 animated short “Hair Love” from Matthew A. Cherry was inspired by videos on social media of Black fathers caring for their children’s hair. With the new series “Young Love,” Cherry has expanded that premise to focus on the close-knit family at the story’s center with a 12-episode animated comedy for Max.

Mom is Angela (Issa Rae) and she’s a hair stylist who is picking her life back up after an illness. Dad is Stephen, a struggling music producer (Scott Mescudi, aka the rapper Kid Cudi) who has been holding down the fort in the meantime. They live on the West Side of Chicago — specifically a tree-lined stretch in West Garfield Park — and share a multifamily home with their six-year-old daughter Zuri (Brooke Conaway), a spirited kid who isn’t afraid to assert herself, or her preferences. They’re upstairs. Downstairs are the grandparents (Loretta Devine and Harry Lennix).

The show zeros in on the kinds of small details that make up a life. Hoping that a working parent will be able to carve out time to show up at a school event. Or the way a child sleeping in your bed can roll over and inadvertently slap you in the face. Or a brief but lovely scene when Angela is driving Zuri to school and glances back at her in the rearview mirror. The little girl is staring out the window and happily nodding her head to the music, but senses her mother looking at her and turns to make eye contact. It’s just a wonderful moment of connection that makes these two characters seem less like cartoon constructs, more like human beings.

“Young Love” is set in Chicago’s West Garfield Park neighborhood. (Max/TNS)

Charming but not treacly, the series starts off strong and I appreciate the straight-faced comedy that’s occasionally laced through it. After tumbling into a pile of garbage, Angela reassures everyone she’s OK: “This bag of glass bottles broke my fall.” When Stephen is working on his latest beats and notices the family cat has put its paws over its ears, he is unfazed: “Who asked you?”

Unlike Disney’s “The Proud Family,” which is more gag-based and with a zanier pacing and energy, “Young Love” is in line with something like “Bob’s Burgers,” but it’s also gentler in many respects. And it’s not aiming to be quite that funny. But I appreciate that this one-liner got in: Walking through a gentrified neighborhood, Angela squints at the word “artisanal” and asks, “Why does every sign say ‘artist anal’?” That’s an “Arrested Development”-level joke! But the episode also glosses over the issues that make gentrification a concern. The guy who once had a restaurant in the area now has a food truck instead, everything’s fine!

Zuri is smart and confident and, as a result, can be the bane of her teacher’s existence. Holding up a storybook for children about an athlete named Tisha Turtle, she says: “Who cares if Tisha can run fast? Tisha should be teaching us kids how to grow into healthy, competent adults who are able to support themselves financially and contribute to society.”

A scene from the animated series “Young Love,” from Chicago native Matthew Cherry. (Max/TNS)

Do 6-year-olds speak this way? Not many! Doesn’t matter, though. Zuri is a gas and she feels like a real person, even if some of her antics, including some early stabs at teenage-style rebellion, seem a little aged up for a first grader.

Mom and Dad are the kind of likable people who are not immune to making bad decisions, like when Angela opens their home to a family in need, only to use them for social media clout. It’s pretty awful! And she knows it! Both parents are working through professional frustrations, including Stephen’s misadventures working with a ridiculous rapper named Lil Ankh, which becomes a running gag throughout the season. Money is tight and it feels like, finally, a fictional depiction of the financial realities so many of us are facing at the moment, but they’re a happy family for the most part. And here’s the rare animated show to put Black millennial parents at its center.

Cherry is a Chicago native and you can see the care that has been put into capturing the city, even if it’s a perpetually warm-weathered version. The visuals are unquestionably Chicago, from images of the river downtown, to the “L” zooming by, to the recognizable wooden back porches on brick three flats (the show’s art director is Ed Li). And I’m a sucker for the hummable opening credits, from composer Taylor Graves.

Adorable family? Check. A gorgeous portrayal of Chicago plus terrific performances? Check and check. “Young Love” is a worthy entry into the pantheon of animated family comedies.

“Young Love” — 3 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: Max

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

From the ‘Field of Dreams’ film site to a solar-system-modeled trek, bikers can find plenty of fascinating trails around the Midwest

Chicago Tribune — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 19:16:05 +0000

Brian E. Clark | Chicago Tribune

As an avid cyclist, Dave Cushman considers himself lucky to live in Madison, Wisconsin, which calls itself the biking capital of the Midwest.

“I moved to Madison when I was 18 to go to the university and never left, in part because the city and its environs are so good for cycling,” said Cushman, who grew up in Glenview.

With more than 200 miles of bike paths, this college town of about 270,000 is ranked one of the top five bike-friendly cities in the country by the League of American Bicyclists. Cushman can roll down the street from his home on Madison’s west side, hop on the Southwest Commuter bike path and connect with the Badger State Trail and then follow that route south 40 miles to the Illinois border, which connects with the Jane Addams Trail.

For something shorter, he can pedal through the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s 1,200-acre arboretum, spin along the south side of Lake Wingra and then loop around Lake Monona — much of it on bike paths — before heading home after a total of 30 miles.

On the way, he’ll be rewarded with excellent views of Madison’s cityscape. He can also stop midway at the Biergarten at Olbrich Park for a cooling beverage, a giant pretzel with Dusseldorf mustard, cheese curds or even a chocolate chip cookie.

But Madison certainly isn’t the only place in the Midwest to ride on bike trails. Illinoisans can find hundreds of miles of routes — many of them on old railroad lines — to pedal in their own state as well as in Indiana, Michigan, Iowa and other parts of Wisconsin. Here are a few of the best routes.

Wisconsin

Planet Trek Dane County

If you’re a fan of our solar system you might want to try Planet Trek Dane County, a nearly 50-mile round trip from Monona Terrace in downtown Madison west to Mount Horeb. This scale-model trip begins with a sundial on the Southwest Commuter Trail in downtown Madison and shifts to the Military Ridge Trail.

The distances between the planets have been shrunk 200 million times, so you’ll encounter Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, two gas giants named Jupiter and Saturn, and two ice giants named Uranus and Neptune — plus a giant asteroid called Ceres and the diminutive Pluto — all at the appropriate distances from each other. When you get to Mount Horeb, refuel at the Grumpy Troll Brew Pub before heading back to Madison.

Elroy-Sparta State Trail

The Elroy-Sparta State Trail dates to the 1960s and was one of the earliest rails-to-trails projects in the country. It connects five communities and features three famous tunnels — two that are 1,600 feet and the third stretching 3,800 feet. There are restrooms, drinking fountains, camping areas and concessions at the endpoint towns, and in between at Norwalk, Wilton and Kendall. Further connections can be made via the 400 State Trail and the Omaha Trail in Elroy and the La Crosse River State Trail in Sparta.

Heart of Vilas County Bike Trail System

In far north Wisconsin, along the border with Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the Heart of Vilas County Bike Trail System offers riders more than 52 miles of paved trails connecting the towns of St. Germain, Sayner, Boulder Junction, Manitowish Waters and Mercer. It runs through the Northern Highland American Legion Forest along clear lakes and over rivers via bridges. The trail has a number of rest areas with picnic spots and restrooms. There are also several campgrounds on the trail and resorts and motels nearby.

Iowa

RAGBRAI

The Hawkeye State is best known for RAGBRAI, the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, which is run each July. It attracts over 20,000 riders and rolls about 500 miles from the Missouri River to the Mississippi River over a week. But it’s almost entirely on roads.

Heritage Trail

For some trail riding sans cars and trucks on the east side of the state, try the Heritage Trail, which rolls 29 miles from Dyersville, home to the “Field of Dreams” movie set in Dubuque County on the Mississippi River.

Cedar Valley Nature Trail

The Cedar Valley Nature Trail is also on the east side of the state and winds 69 miles from Evansdale to Ely. Part of the path follows the Cedar River and goes through a verdant landscape of cottonwoods, elms, native grasses and wildflowers.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – APRIL 11: A cyclist rides along the lakefront on April 11, 2023 in Chicago, Illinois. It was announced today that Chicago will be the host city for the Democratic National Convention in 2024. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Illinois

Great River Trail

On the Illinois side of Mississippi, the 62-mile Great River Trail is based in the Quad Cities and is part of the Great American Rail-Trail, which is still under construction but will eventually span 3,700 miles and cross 12 states from coast to coast. The Great River Trail runs from Moline north to Savanna and passes through Fulton, which has 22 European windmills.

Jane Addams Trail

The 19-mile Jane Addams Trail begins at the Wisconsin border, follows the route of the old Galena and Chicago Union Railroad and ends in Freeport. It’s named for the Chicago social worker who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 for her work with poor, immigrant families. The trail goes through her hometown of Cedarville.

Tunnel Hill Trail

At the southern end of the state, the 55-mile Tunnel Hill Trail begins in Cypress, ends in Eldorado and features one dark tunnel and two dozen trestle bridges.

Cal-Sag Trail

For something closer to Chicago, try the Cal-Sag Trail, which runs from Lemont in the west and Alsip in the east almost entirely on the banks of Cal-Sag Channel and the Calumet River.

Indiana

B-Line Trail

If you like visiting cool college towns, head south to Bloomington, Indiana, and hop on the 3.1-mile B-Line Trail, which passes by art murals and connects with several other trails, including the Bloomington Rail Trail, the Clear Creek Trail and the Limestone Greenway.

Michigan

William Field Memorial Trail

In Michigan, the 22-mile William Field Memorial Trail between Hart and Montague is on the west side of the state, south of Ludington, and flows past miles of orchards, farms and forests.

Leelanau Trail

Farther north, the Leelanau Trail connects Traverse City and Suttons Bay. It flows along Grand Traverse Bay and offers lovely views of sailboats on the bay as well as cherry orchards, farms and grape vineyards.

Sleeping Bear Dunes Heritage Trail

The 21-mile Sleeping Bear Dunes Heritage Trail winds through Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and its towering 450-foot sand bluffs. You can rent a bike in Glen Arbor, which also has grocery stores and restaurants.

For more information on hundreds of other trails in the Midwest and around the country, visit the Rails To Trails Conservancy website at railstotrails.org.

Brian E. Clark is a freelancer.

From Cody Rigsby to Emma Lovewell, your favorite Peloton instructors have written books

Chicago Tribune — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 17:45:08 +0000

By John Warner, Chicago Tribune

I have spent the entirety of the 53-plus years I’ve been on this Earth immune to the lure of inspirational self-help books.

When it comes to inspiration to be better, I tend to respond with “Nah, I’m good.”

I’m a secure, well-adjusted human — or maybe I’m just lazy. Either way, the outcome is the same.

But a veritable flood of 2023 books by Peloton instructors has me reconsidering my no self-help books stance because I cannot deny my fascination with these people who talk to me through the screen, encouraging me on my “fitness journey” just about every day.

Yes, friends, after years of indifferent exercise following my high school and college (club) sports careers, I am in the midst of a 129-week streak of Peloton workouts. In 2023 I’m on track to log more than 20,000 minutes of activity on the platform.

The most current release is Cody Rigsby’s “XOXO, Cody: An Opinionated Homosexual’s Guide to Self-Love, Relationships, and Tactful Pettiness,” a title that well reflects Rigsby’s Peloton persona. Judging from the imperfect (but still useful) metric of Instagram followers (1.3 million), Rigsby is the most famous Peloton instructor, a genuine B-list celebrity who previously appeared on “Dancing with the Stars.”

Cody Rigsby attends the 2022 American Music Awards at Microsoft Theater on November 20, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

The thing that makes Rigsby so popular on the platform, his nonstop monologue of jokes, commentary and anecdotes that let you into his inner life, is too distracting for me, exercise-wise, but also perhaps makes him the most likely Peloton instructor to produce an entertaining book.

Earlier this year, Rigsby’s opposite in terms of approach to virtual fitness coaching, Ben Alldis released “Raise the Bar: How to Push Beyond Your Limits and Build a Stronger Future You.” Unlike Rigsby, Alldis is all fitness all the time, a relentlessly positive presence encouraging you to “bring the fire” while exposing you to a playlist of dance club “bangers.” Watching the pleasure he seems to take in doing raises, curls and squats, you think there has to be some hidden depths not apparent during his fitness classes. Maybe it comes out in the book. I have to admit, I’m curious.

Emma Lovewell’s catchphrase, “progress not perfection,” shows up in her book, “Live Learn Love Well: Lessons from a Life of Progress Not Perfection” and it’s a good indicator of why she’s one of my favorite instructors. She provides a mix of Alldis’ positivity with a bit of the hard case gym coach who also has a taste in music close to my own. Lovewell’s book appears to be something of a whole lifestyle guide, literally how to live your best life as a model beautiful fitness instructor with a large organic garden at your country home, like Martha Stewart with a six pack. (I’m afraid that ship has sailed for yours truly on multiple fronts.)

Emma Lovewell attends Variety’s 2022 Power Of Women at The Glasshouse on May 05, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)

Finally, October will see the release of Alex Toussaint’s “Activate Your Greatness.” Toussaint is a favorite of celebrities and is most known for grueling rides that are supposed to make you the best you can be, but that have left me feeling nauseous and wondering why I did that. I avoid his classes like the plague, but to each their own.

Looking at the array of books perhaps illustrates why Peloton has become so popular. There’s a connection to be had for everyone. Rigsby is your friend, Aldiss your coach, Lovewell your inspiration and Toussaint your drill instructor.

Alex Toussaint speaks onstage during the 2023 ESSENCE Festival Of Culture at Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on June 30, 2023 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Marcus Ingram/Getty Images FOR ESSENCE)

Considering I’ve spent over 200 hours with these folks this year alone, obviously, what these people are selling, I’m buying. Maybe it’s time to go past the screen and spend time with them on the page.

John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”

Twitter @biblioracle

Book recommendations from the Biblioracle

John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.

1. “Heroines of Mercy Street: The Real Nurses of the Civil War” by Pamela Toler

2. “Moloka’I” by Alan Brennert

3. “Rest is Resistance” by Tricia Hersey

4. “Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People” by Tracy Kidder

5. “I Have Some Questions for You” by Rebecca Makkai

— Cindy N., LaGrange

For Cindy, I’m recommending a book fundamentally about healing in all of its dimensions because that seems to fit her list, “The English Patient” by Michael Ondaatje.

1. “The Color of Water” by James McBride

2. “The Uncommon Reader” by Alan Bennett

3. “Foster” by Claire Keegan

4. “Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone” by Benjamin Stevenson

5. “Tom Lake” by Ann Patchett

— Jenna P., Chicago

For Jenna, a beautiful, but also intense family drama, “Flight” by Lynn Steger Strong.

1. “It Starts with Us” by Colleen Hoover

2. “Hell and Back” by Craig Johnson

3. “Bittersweet” by Colleen McCullough

4. “Hello Beautiful” by Ann Napolitano

5. “Salthouse Place” by Jamie Lee Sogn

— Willa R., Orland Park

Every so often I like to find someone who might not have read Larry McMurtry’s all-time classic “Lonesome Dove” and recommend it because, really, it’s a book probably everyone should read.

Get a reading from the Biblioracle

Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com

Most reality TV cast and crew aren’t unionized. Will that change?

Chicago Tribune — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 19:07:07 +0000

Nina Metz | Chicago Tribune

The unions representing Hollywood actors and writers have been on strike for months over better pay and working conditions. This week, Marvel VFX workers voted to unionize for similar reasons. Is it time for reality TV cast and crew to follow suit?

The ongoing work stoppage has prompted network television to rely on reality programming more than usual, with “Big Brother” as one example. Though it typically airs over the summer, this season CBS is extending it into November, making it the longest season in the show’s history.

With high viewer ratings but smaller budgets than their scripted counterparts, it’s inevitable that the conversation about what constitutes a fair workplace environment has expanded to reality television.

For nearly a quarter century, Andy Dehnart has been the preeminent journalist covering unscripted TV at his site Reality Blurred. In a recent column, he makes a persuasive case that workers both in front of and behind the camera are in need of protections that a union might be able to provide.

“Reality TV is not a fringe part of Hollywood, filling gaps in the schedule before slinking back into its cave, but cornerstone content for networks and streaming platforms,” he writes. And yet: “These corporations have successfully convinced us that not only are cast members not worthy of labor protections, they’re not even worthy of human decency.”

Here and there, you can point to shows that have bucked the trend. “RuPaul’s Drag Race” did not start out as a union show, but it has been since 2014 — for the crew. The cast? No union.

“This genre is very mature,” said Dehnart. It’s time to start acting like it.

Here’s more from our conversation.

Q: Shows like “RuPaul’s Drag Race” are one-off examples. A broader unionizing effort would mean, in theory, all shows are union — like their scripted counterparts.

A: Exactly. There was a movement back in the 2000s when the WGA was trying to incorporate story producers as writers. Story producers don’t write scripts, of course. But they assemble footage and create stories out of existing material. And what happened in the last writer’s strike is the WGA went in with the intention of unionizing reality TV story producers, but then dropped it as a concession. That is the last formal industrywide attempt that I am aware of.

Q: The episodes we watch are not just the result of: We filmed people and here’s the footage. You’re saying there are creative demands involved in unscripted shows that are similar to writing.

A: That’s right. And the challenge of getting people to understand the craft of reality TV — let alone support the labor movement behind it — is that there’s a sense that what’s transpiring on the show is real and it’s all “just happening” and therefore it’s easy to produce.

But it’s just as complicated, maybe more so, than scripted TV. As one story producer described it, it’s like taking pieces of shattered glass and having to turn them into a beautiful mosaic. Because you have all this material to work with, but you can’t control it or change it the way a writer on a scripted show can.

So it’s an entirely different skill set and it’s one that the public at large, and even some people in the unscripted world, don’t appreciate.

Q: You use the word “exploitation” in your column. What are some of the abuses that a union could theoretically create guardrails to prevent?

A: For the crew especially, it’s a freelance business and the workers have very little protection. So a lot of times they just need a job and will accept certain unfair conditions, like working long hours without getting paid overtime. People feel like they’re being taken advantage of but there are no external standards set by a union that shows have to abide by. So as crew, they feel like they can’t push back because they’re relying on referrals to get their next job.

And I think for cast members, we’ve started to hear more of the horror stories recently. The “Love is Blind” lawsuit is a fascinating example. (Cast members claim they were denied water, plied with alcohol and underpaid.)

They’re talking about being locked in their hotel rooms, not only without contact with the outside world, but without certain basics. And the way the show is produced, it makes it look like they’re just hanging out in this nice house. It does not show them leaving the set, being driven to a hotel and being locked in there by producers — producers who presumably are on duty all night and have to monitor and make sure the cast members aren’t leaving and talking to each other.

Here’s another example: A few years ago, during Season 39 of “Survivor,” there was unwanted touching by one contestant to another. They filmed the season, it took six months to air and neither CBS nor the production company seemed to think there was a problem. It was only after there was this severe backlash by viewers and critics that CBS finally said: OK, we’re going to have a rule that says no unwanted touching. And we’re also going to have someone on set that you can report concerns to.

The fact that this didn’t exist before December of 2019 is absurd and appalling. And I think it speaks to the fact that there’s no standard of care. And honestly, from what I’ve seen having been on location with “Survivor” a few times — and just from what cast members have talked about — “Survivor” is actually one of the better shows, in terms of the care it gives to its cast and crew members.

For every show, these circumstances can be unique, because every reality show is different in the way it’s produced. More corners get cut on shows with low budgets. So there’s all kinds of opportunities for exploitation. At least with a unionized production, there are methods for compensating people and creating protections like: Yes, we must have a meal break at this certain time.

But right now, there’s no such protection industrywide in unscripted TV.

———

(Nina Metz is a Chicago Tribune critic who covers TV and film.)

Long COVID study will dig into treatment options. ‘I think a lot of people are really desperate’

Chicago Tribune — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 18:19:03 +0000

Ilana Arougheti | (TNS) Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — At first, Debbie Tumbarello’s wedding was the height of romance — a Valentine’s Day whirlwind straight out of “Sleepless in Seattle,” she said.

Tumbarello, who lives in Inverness, Illinois, married her husband in Las Vegas on Feb. 14. She left Vegas with memories of a Beatles tribute show and a rooftop ceremony. However, she also left with COVID-19 — and hasn’t come back to full health since.

“The symptoms of the cold went away, but as the weeks progressed, I just started sleeping,” Tumbarello said. “On the weekends, I’d be sleeping 14 to 16 hours a day … My husband was freaking out. He’s like, this is just not you.”

After hearing about her brain fog, extreme fatigue and joint pain, an infectious disease specialist at NorthShore University Health System diagnosed Tumbarello with long COVID.

Now, Tumbarello has prequalified for a nationwide study aiming to learn more about long COVID and design treatment and prevention programs. Sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the study will test up to 11 combinations of treatments for long COVID. Organizers are not looking for a cure for COVID. They aim to learn why long COVID happens, both to stop future cases and to help those already experiencing debilitating symptoms.

“NIH is committed to a highly coordinated and scientifically rigorous approach to find treatments that will provide relief for the millions of people living with long COVID,” said acting NIH director Lawrence Tabak.

NorthShore-Edward-Elmhurst Health has become one of the study’s four primary sites — and NorthShore doctors are actively recruiting participants.

NIH researchers picked primary sites based on proximity to communities heavily affected by long COVID. Access to relevant medical equipment, the expertise of nearby doctors and strong track records of diversity in local clinical trials also played a role.

The first phase of the study, which included 24,000 patients, involved observing people with long COVID to see when and why symptoms develop. Phase two, now starting at NorthShore, includes three clinical trials targeting cognitive dysfunction, sleep issues and viral particles.

Up to 40,000 people could participate in the study overall, some for up to four years. The entire initiative will receive $1.15 billion in congressional funding over four years, $811 million of which has already been allocated.

Some patients will receive either extended doses of Paxlovid or a placebo in the Recover-Vital clinical trial, meant to eliminate the lingering presence of SARS-CoV-2 viral matter in the body. Paxlovid is already used to treat some short-term COVID cases, but this trial will test whether the drug could also keep the virus from causing long-term damage to organs and the immune system.

The Recover-Neuro section of the trials will address brain fog, memory problems and other neurological symptoms of long COVID. Some participants will use online programs meant to boost cognitive and executive functioning. Others will undergo transcranial stimulation, where small electric currents are sent through the brain to improve blood flow.

The third section of the trials, Recover-Sleep, will compare two different medications that could be used to stop excessive daytime sleepiness. Other proven interventions for problems falling or staying asleep will be tested in groups.

A fourth section, Recover-Autonomic, will take place at other sites. The trial will test different combinations of medications to help symptoms related to the autonomic nervous system, controlling automatic processes in the body.

The study’s first patient, Evanston resident Jobi Cates, started in the Recover-Vital clinical trial last week.

Cates, 52, contracted COVID for the first time in March 2023. What felt like a bad cold developed into a “heavy feeling” that reminded Cates of pneumonia. Within a month, her heart was racing constantly, an early sign of long COVID.

Cates took an extended leave from her job as executive director at a criminal justice nonprofit. However, “radical rest” was only so effective against what was eventually diagnosed as long COVID. Cates was also diagnosed with POTS, an autonomic nervous system disease causing heart, hormone and blood flow issues.

In the early months of long COVID, Cates didn’t leave her apartment. She couldn’t drive, prepare meals, sit upright at her computer or talk on the phone for more than 20 minutes. While heart medication has helped, her walks are limited to a block or two and her social contact is severely restricted.

“My life as I knew it before is over,” Cates said. “Hopefully I get some of it back someday.”

Long COVID can be difficult to identify, as symptoms vary widely, said Dr. Nirav Shah, the study’s primary investigator at the Edward-Elmhurst sites. Many patients are “essentially disabled” by the time they are diagnosed, and remedies are sparse.

Shah, an infectious disease specialist at NorthShore, hopes the Recover trials at Edward-Elmhurst will bring some long-awaited relief for Chicagoland patients.

“Our system is really excited,” Shah said, “especially the clinicians who have been taking care of long COVID patients.”

More recent strains of COVID seem to lead to long COVID less frequently, Shah said. Hispanic adults, as well as bisexual and transgender adults, tend to develop long COVID more frequently.

Both Cates and Tumbarello were fully vaccinated before contracting COVID this year.

Edward-Elmhurst Health includes eight hospitals across six counties. Shah leads a team of nine health care professionals from NorthShore who are organizing the study. Other NorthShore doctors are actively recruiting their own patients.

Being recruited directly “made a huge difference,” Cates said.

“Trying to get into (a long COVID clinic or study) is a task that I don’t necessarily have the energy for at this point,” Cates said. “I don’t have the energy to do even 1/100th of what I used to do in a day.”

The team initially reached out to 2,000 potential long COVID patients in the Chicago area, Shah said. Between 50 and 75 people responded.

“I think a lot of people are really desperate for treatment options in a space where there hasn’t been many,” Shah said.

Prequalifying for the study mostly involved speaking with the study team about her symptoms. Tumbarello said. For her, brain fog has been a particular issue.

“Some days, I just have trouble putting the words together,” Tumbarello said. “If you haven’t had COVID, there’s no way to describe it.”

Tumbarello has been on medical leave from her job as an executive assistant since June. Her brain fog makes it difficult to get out of bed in the morning, she said, much less manage multimillion-dollar contracts.

Cates, too, experiences debilitating brain fog. Her worst days, she said, remind her of when one of her parents was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

“When I do get fatigued and sometimes even when I’m not, my brain gets very foggy and cloudy so I can’t always think or talk the way I used to,” Cates said.

Residents who think they may have long COVID and are interested in participating in the study can reach out to Edward-Elmhurst Health after consulting with their doctor, Shah said.

Cates and Tumbarello both encourage others to apply and to continue raising awareness for the trial.

“As much as I’ve lost from this, I’m still hopeful,” Cates said. “All around Chicago, there are good people who, once they find out about long COVID, do whatever they can to try to help.”

The clinical trial team can be reached at idresearch@northshore.org or 224-364-7971.

___

Fall TV preview 2023: 15 shows premiering in the coming weeks as the Hollywood strikes continue

Chicago Tribune — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 19:23:26 +0000

Nina Metz | Chicago Tribune

Hollywood has been in limbo these last few months. It’s been especially tough for everyone who earns their living making TV and film. But it also means viewers will start seeing just how that is impacting the fall network lineup. A prolonged strike — still ongoing — will inevitably have that effect and the work stoppage has reshaped prime time in significant ways.

For NBC, that means no new episodes of producer Dick Wolf’s “One Chicago” and “Law & Order” franchises. But there will be new episodes of “Quantum Leap” and “Magnum P.I.” (which is moving over from CBS to finish out its run) because both series completed filming before the strikes.

ABC is sticking with unscripted staples such as “Dancing with the Stars” and “The Golden Bachelor” a spinoff of “The Bachelor” featuring a 71-year-old widower from Indiana. ABC will also air reruns of “Abbott Elementary.”

On CBS, along with expanded versions of the reality shows “The Amazing Race” and “Survivor,” the lineup also includes reruns of “Blue Bloods,” “NCIS” and “Yellowstone” (the latter of which originally aired on the Paramount Network).

Even the 75th Emmy Awards have been affected. Originally scheduled to air on Fox in September, the broadcast has been pushed back to January.

By contrast, streamers and premium cable channels do have new shows coming down the pike, if not quite in the same numbers as in years past. Expect that trend to continue, strike or no strike. Last year 599 scripted shows were on the schedule. That number just isn’t sustainable.

But if the studios are unable to resolve the strikes soon, their streaming pipeline will slow to a trickle. We’ll know more when we see just how many (or few) premieres there are this winter. Until then, here’s a look at some offerings in the first few weeks of the fall TV season, in order of their premieres.

Joseph Sikora, left, and Isaac Keys are Chicago-based drug kingpins in Season 2 of “Power Book IV: Force,” premiering this week on Starz. (James Dimmock/Starz/TNS)

1. “Power Book IV: Force” (premieres Sept. 1 on Starz): The street-wise bad boy extraordinaire Tommy Egan (played by Joseph Sikora) is back for Season 2. The first season got off to a compelling start, with Tommy pushing his way into Chicago’s illegal drug trade, but then resorted to clichéd tropes as it went along. The marketing for the new season includes a line that gave me pause about the show’s point of view: “In a city divided by race, Tommy straddles the line, ultimately becoming the linchpin that not only unites them — but holds the power to watch them crumble.” Sorry, did they just call him the white savior of the drug trade?

2. “The Changeling” (Sept. 8 on Apple TV+): The eight-part drama stars LaKeith Stanfield as a new father who finds his life spinning out of control. It’s adapted from a novel that has been described as a “punchy cocktail of modern parenting and ancient magic” wherein the “anxieties of fatherhood, race and money are dwarfed by otherworldly peril.” Apple is calling it a fairy tale for grown-ups: “A horror story, a parenthood fable and a perilous odyssey through a New York City you didn’t know existed.”

3. “This Farming Life” (Sept. 12 on BritBox): A docuseries that follows six farming families in Scotland and Northern Ireland. It’s not a lifestyle for the faint of heart, whether it’s contending with sick herds, bad weather or a worsening economic climate. “It takes three generations to build something up, but it only takes one to ruin it,” is how one person describes the stakes.

4. “The Morning Show” (Sept. 13 on Apple TV+): The overhyped Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon starrer returns for Season 3 and I’m on record with my disappointment in the show, which traffics in some of the most banal observations about modern media imaginable. The eye-rolling this show inspires! That said, Nicole Beharie joins the cast this season, which might be reason enough to check it out.

5. “The Other Black Girl” (Sept. 13 on Hulu): Nella is a Black editorial assistant at a New York publishing house who is struggling to work her way up the corporate ladder and retain her dignity along the way. When the all-white company hires another Black employee, she’s initially thrilled. But is this newcomer friend or foe? A surreal thriller about microaggressions, office politics and taking over the world (or at least a small corner of it), the series is based on the bestseller by Zakiya Dalila Harris, who also has a writing credit on the show.

6. “The Super Models” (Sept. 20 on Apple TV+): The supermodel era was defined by Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington, who captured the public’s imagination in a way that hasn’t been replicated since. The women sit for new interviews in this docuseries, but like so many celebrity documentary projects of late, my curiosity is mixed with skepticism about just how probing this endeavor will actually be. “Donyale Luna: Supermodel” (Sept. 13 on Max) premieres a week earlier as a documentary about the life and career of the first Black model featured on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue.

7. “Young Love” (Sept. 21 on Max): Created by Chicago native Matthew Cherry, the warmly comedic animated series expands upon Cherry’s Oscar-winning short “Hair Love,” about a Black father who learns the ins and outs of styling his young daughter’s hair. Kid Cudi and Issa Rae voice the parents.

8. “The Continental: From the World of John Wick” (Sept. 22 on Peacock): The crime series is a prequel spinoff to the ultraviolent “John Wick” movie franchise and focuses on the Continental hotel chain, which serves as a safe haven for assassins. The show is set in the ‘70s (interesting!) and stars Mel Gibson (not so interesting), so do with that information what you will.

9. “Gen V” (Sept. 29 on Amazon): A spinoff of Amazon’s popular and very satirical superhero series “The Boys,” the new show takes place at superhero college where powers are injected rather than inherited (I wonder if they have creative ideas about using superpowers for keg stands).

10. “Lupin” (Oct. 5 on Netflix): As a character, the gentleman thief known as Lupin falls somewhere between Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood. As played with broad-shouldered grace by French actor Omar Sy, he has charisma to spare. Netflix is calling these new episodes Part 3 and I have no idea what that means in terms of seasons. TV has become a land of chaos. Just go with it.

11. “Loki” (Oct. 6 on Disney+): For my money, the one-and-done “WandaVision” and “Loki” are the only two Marvel TV series that have exceeded expectations. The latter returns for a second season with the puckish Tom Hiddleston in the title role. The character has been Hiddleston’s wittiest work to date. Loki will once again be working with Owen Wilson’s Mobius and other members of the Orwellian-sounding Time Variance Authority to navigate the multiverse.

12. “Frasier” (Oct. 12 on Paramount+): They have revived my beloved “Frasier” and I wish I could say this was good news. The “Cheers” spinoff originally ran from 1993-2004 and I recently went back to watch the whole thing and it still holds up! Why does screwball comedy paired with smart writing feel like such a rarity in TV comedies at the moment? Alas, Kelsey Grammer is the only cast member returning. RIP John Mahoney. But also: RIP the erudite ludicrousness that was the Brothers Crane, aka Frasier and Niles. The new series (10 episodes in all) has Frasier returning to Boston and living with Freddy, his now-adult son. (The first two episodes of the season will also air Oct. 17 on CBS.)

13. “Lessons in Chemistry” (Oct. 13 on Apple TV+): Brie Larson stars as a frustrated 1960s scientist who lands a gig hosting a TV cooking show, which she uses as a platform to educate viewers about chemistry. Adapted from the zippy 2022 novel of the same name. Beau Bridges also stars.

14. “Annika” (Oct. 15 on PBS): Masterpiece Mystery is the American broadcast hub of British procedurals and “Annika” is one of the better additions of late, starring the great Nicola Walker as the wry leader of Glasgow’s Marine Homicide Unit. (Have you seen Walker in “The Split”? It’s not new, but worth checking out if you’re a fan of Walker. She plays a very droll, very upscale lawyer with a snazzy wardrobe and a messy family life. It’s streaming on Hulu.)

15. “Fellow Travelers” (Oct. 29 on Showtime): Part epic love story, part political thriller, the limited series is about the “clandestine romance of two very different men who meet in McCarthy-era Washington,” and follows the pair over the next four decades. Starring Matt Bomer (“White Collar”) and Jonathan Bailey (“Bridgerton”). Creator Ron Nyswaner’s screenwriting credits include “Philadelphia” and “My Policeman.” This is his return to Showtime, where he previously worked on “Ray Donovan” and “Homeland.”

Martin Luther King’s ‘Dream’: Letting freedom ring from Stone Mountain, 60 years later

Chicago Tribune — Mon, 28 Aug 2023 20:08:18 +0000

Nneka M. Okona | for the Chicago Tribune

I was born in Atlanta during the evening hours on a Friday in late May. Days later, my parents brought me home, home to Stone Mountain. Since then, I’ve begrudgingly called this Atlanta suburb, born of red clay and granite, mine.

From my hometown, the 825-foot-tall quartz monadnock for which our city is named looms in the distance, visible from most anywhere. Its presence follows us as we run errands, lounge in outdoor spaces, or take out the trash in the evenings.

Others have staked their own claim on Stone Mountain. Before roads were built, Indigenous people hiked to the summit, bowing to the sunrise in the mornings and the sunsets as evening called.

This rock meant something else before the reborn Ku Klux Klan set a cross ablaze on the summit in 1915 the night of Thanksgiving, reigniting its agenda to sow seeds of violence, destruction, bigotry and discord. It became a sacred place to many Klansmen, who owned the land and as recently as 2017 petitioned to burn a cross atop the mount. When Georgia took over the park in 1958, the Klan’s ties to the rock were officially severed. But the stain of what had already been done — the degradation and unfettered hatred — was cemented.

Venture into Stone Mountain Park — the most-visited tourist site in Georgia — and you’ll get a closer glimpse of the face of the mountain, upon which Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are carved. It took 57 years and four lead sculptors to finish the project, which was fraught with disagreements and funding issues. As it is, this tribute to the Confederacy is the largest, unmovable monument of its type in the world.

And yet, families gather in front of the mountain on weekends, sprawled out on the lush Memorial Lawn with blankets and coolers, engaged in games and entertainment coupled with cognitive dissonance. The significance is loud and forever silenced.

STONE MOUNTAIN, GA – JUNE 16: Lahahuia Hanks holds up a fist in front of the Confederate carving at Stone Mountain Park during a Black Lives Matter protest on June 16, 2020 in Stone Mountain, Georgia. The march is to protest confederate monuments and recent police shootings. Stone Mountain Park features a Confederate memorial carving depicting Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis, President of the confederate states. (Photo by Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)

Life in the suburbs of Atlanta crawls. Leaf blowers and lawn mowers compete for attention in a cacophonous chorus early on weekend mornings and evenings as dusk settles into the skies, urging crickets to screech their allegiance to darkness. As a child, I plotted my way out of this home, promising myself that when I finally left, I would not look back. I would not return. I would not fight to be rooted where it all began.

But home always calls. Even after leaving for college and later, leaving the country for a Spanish adventure teaching English, I found my way back to Stone Mountain, looking to the land that burdened and frustrated me for a fresh start. Within the same time I was finding my new rhythm back in the South, my hometown has been finding its way, too, becoming somewhere beautiful in spite of its past.

This moment of reflection came with the approaching 60th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s renowned “I Have a Dream” speech, which he gave Aug. 28, 1963. On that day, as he looked down from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he saw a horde of Black people waiting for his words. They were waiting to be moved, encouraged, to feel some sort of validation that their efforts for equality were not in vain.

And as he spoke his now often-called-upon words, mesmerizing and inspiring the crowd, he invoked a bit of home for me — he called to “let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia,” forever memorializing the complexities of this city and the reputation that often precedes it.

People like me, a Black woman from Stone Mountain, don’t feel the need to reflect upon the gruesome history. But we know it intimately, without blinking and without hesitation.

And yet, there is another story we cling to: one of resilience, of rebuilding, of taking what is broken and using the shards to create something unprecedented and glorious.

This is the story I want to tell.

To get to the top of Stone Mountain, a 1-mile hike or gondola ride are your options. On a clear day, you can see the north Georgia mountains and parts of Tennessee on the ascent. As the wind blows in docile gusts, the serenity connects you to how monumental this rock’s existence is as a sacred gathering place in nature.

In his “I Have A Dream” speech, Dr. King spoke of a symbolic bell of freedom ringing from the tops of Stone Mountain to the hills of Tennessee. Visitors can climb the steep 1.3-mile trail to enjoy the summit views of the Atlanta skyline.

Travel along a walking path from Stone Mountain Park, and you’ll reach Stone Mountain Village, often touted as “downtown” by residents. Humming in the shadows of Stone Mountain Park with an unexpected vibrancy, the newly invigorated Main Street corridor is proof of what can happen when we move beyond the gruesome underbellies of history and create a pathway for all — and, specifically, Black people — to flourish.

Throughout my youth, what lined Main Street was forgettable. Stone Mountain Village was not somewhere most folk, residents or not, wanted to spend any extended amount of time. I remember a funnel cake restaurant and a pizza joint with decent slices. I always wondered what it could be if someone cared enough, and in recent years I’ve had the honor of watching that potential unfold, with Black entrepreneurs leading the way.

At 5329 Mimosa Drive, you’ll find Gilly Brew Bar. Daniel Brown opened his cafe in 2018, in the city’s oldest existing building and once-home of Stone Mountain’s first mayor. The stately white house was built by enslaved Africans around 1834, and the town’s borders were based around the mayoral residence.

When you walk inside the stuccoed building, the floorboards creak under your feet, a reminder of the stories and lives that played out over nearly 200 years. In that time, it served as a hotel, a Civil War hospital, and a restaurant. As Gilly Brew Bar, the inside cafe and outdoor verandas maintain a steady flow of people working from their laptops or meeting friends for lively conversations.

Meander five minutes north and you’ll find The Vibrary, 970 Main St., a combination wine-and-book bar helmed by owner Candace Walker. A longtime wine aficionado, she sought to create a space for fellow enthusiasts to gather, and opened the space in 2021.

“Given the area’s history and that a Black woman-owned business was not welcomed during that time, being a part of its revitalization is important to me,” she said. “I want to help others experience the same nostalgia and connection to the community that I have.”

For Black people and Black families like mine, our full, rich stories are lost in the Stone Mountain history books. The assumption is that only racism thrived here when really, we took root and built community in spite of it. And we still remain.

Better still: We thrive. We embrace a city once mired in gore and fear, and find it reaching out its arms back to us. Instead of the suburban suffocation of my childhood, I am surprised to find myself breathing deep, drawn to spending long stretches of time in a downtown where, for the first time, I truly feel at home.

Sixty years later, this is what King’s dream was about. Stone Mountain was one of the first towns where Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman laid waste on his March to the Sea, considered instrumental in bringing about the end of the Civil War. He wrangled this city and destroyed the railroad tracks as he scorched the earth in petulant rage, but it regrew into a place where Black people felt encouraged to start anew.

An aerial photograph shows Memorial Hall (foreground) and Confederate Memorial Carving (background) at Stone Mountain Park on Tuesday, April 20, 2021. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS)

For places such as The Vibrary and Gilly Brew Bar to be hubs of fun, enjoyment and community is the fulfillment of more than dreams; it is our inheritance, it is the ultimate consolation, it is a certain peace.

This place is ours to call home. And always has been, even if we didn’t always realize it. As you walk through Main Street, you’ll pass the Freedom Bell at the heart of town. It commemorates King’s speech and that promise of freedom.

The legacy of Stone Mountain belongs to us, too, and we shall, forevermore, let freedom ring here, right at home.

Where to go in Stone Mountain Village

Sweet Potato Cafe: Sweet potato-centric restaurant with soul food, salads and soups. 5377 Manor Drive, thesweetpotatocafe.net

Weeyums Philly Style: Philadelphia-style cheesesteaks and hoagies, wings and salads. 900 Main St., weeyums.com

Freedom Bell: Monument in tribute to “I Have A Dream” speech. Dedicated in 2000. 922 Main St.

Nneka M. Okona is a freelance writer.

What is the new ‘Star Wars’ show ‘Ahsoka’ on Disney+ and why should you care?

Chicago Tribune — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 17:39:46 +0000

Christopher Borrelli | Chicago Tribune

Ahsoka Tano pilots a flying quesadilla through an unsettled galaxy. As a member of the Togruta species, she is a native of the planet Shili, and not the Togruta colony found on the planet Kiros. (Such an easy mistake to make.) According to Wookiepedia — a product of the semi-sentient human species of the planet Earth — Togruta can be blue, purple, white, yellow or red. Ahsoka is sort of spray-tan hued, though a bit lighter. The Togruta are distinguished by their loyalty and their montrals, which Wookiepedia describes as “cone-like horns” jutting out of their temples, but, to humans, it looks like small octopuses passed out on their heads and the Togruta were totally cool with it.

How much of that did you already know?

It might matter if you follow the new “Ahsoka” series on Disney+ into the darkest reaches of “Star Wars” lore. To put it in fluent George Lucas: “Ahsoka” is set on the outer rim of the galaxy. But if you come to “Star Wars” every decade or so? “Ahsoka” is about a Skywalker-adjacent figure with no presence in the films, though, because of animated shows and novels and other Disney+ “Star Wars” series, has become one of the most intriguing characters of an constantly thickening universe.

If anything I have said so far has already turned you off, I understand.

“Star Wars,” like Marvel and DC and Harry Potter, has exhausted a lot of people who don’t really care enough to splash around in the minutiae of their respective worlds — and plenty of those who do. For every C3PO you know like your own grandmother, there is always an Aldi-brand C1-10P. That’s why it’s hard to admit: “Ahsoka” is worth caring about. The first two episodes are perhaps overly pensive and sluggish but the heart is certain and the promise is often exciting. Rosario Dawson, who plays Ahsoka, struts through clash after clash with a self-possession typically reserved for male Mandalorians and Han Solos, and her crew, pilot Hera (a green Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and graffiti artist/demolition expert Sabine (a star-making turn by Natasha Liu Bordizzo), bring fire.

These first episodes also suffer from what the first episodes of nearly every TV series must endure: The band is being assembled. Except here, Ahsoka is putting the band back together. And the band has a history. If you’ve seen the animated “Clone Wars” and “Rebels” shows, you’ll be fine. If not, some background: Ahsoka was a brash padawan (aka protégé) of even brasher Anakin Skywalker, who fell into a space fryolator one day and came out Darth Vader. Ahsoka watched Anakin losing faith in the Jedi, and the Jedi’s response to a struggling Anakin partly soured Ahsoka on the Jedi. She was a Jedi, yet a Dylan-esque one: She set out on her own, helped form a movement, but stayed a powerful enigma. In “Rebels” — also by “Ahsoka” co-creator Dave “The Man Who Would Be Lucas” Filoni — Ahsoka crossed paths with a group of nascent Empire agitators that included Sabine and Hera. A young Jedi named Ezra Bridger was the soul of the squad. But when that series ended in 2018, Ezra vanished — and their threat, Admiral Thrawn, vanished with him.

If that sounds like a lot to know, it is.

“Ahsoka” nods to reams of past history while setting up the series’ new mission: Find Ezra and, with him, Thrawn, aka The Man Who Could Be a New, Improved Darth Vader. Timeline-wise, all of this happens just after the fall of the Empire in “Return of the Jedi” (making it contemporaneous to “The Mandalorian”). But pockets of Empire true believers linger through the galaxy, despite how many times its former leaders are indicted for subverting democracy. (Seriously.) It’s a universe with a power vacuum, a conundrum that, to a certain extent, those recent “Star Wars” movies (“The Force Awakens,” “The Last Jedi,” etc.) took on.

The promise of “Ahsoka” is partly a redo, with even sharper heroes and more evocative villains. Thrawn — who doesn’t appear in the first two episodes but is blue and suave and evil and played by Danish actor Lars Mikkelsen — would bring a different flavor to “Star Wars,” a bad guy more reliant on intelligence than armor and brawn. The character (first introduced 32 years ago in the “Star Wars” novels of Timothy Zahn) wants to restore the Empire, without the arrogance and self-satisfaction that curdled it. Ahsoka, similarly, recognizes the need for a smarter Jedi order that doesn’t shy from necessary shades of gray. After last year’s terrific “Andor” series on Disney+ upended the possibilities of live-action “Star Wars” — veering into genocide and systemic oppression with a startling anger (the show has been nominated for eight Emmy awards) — there’s desire for fresh tones to emerge from a very old franchise.

“Ahsoka” looks eager to try its hand at revival. It is serious and almost entirely female-led — in front and (somewhat) behind the camera. That mirrors a fandom that, in recent years, has moved closer to gender parity, and given the “Star Wars” ecosystem new energy. But like “The Mandalorian,” “The Book of Boba Fett” and “Obi-Wan Kenobi” — all cocreated by Filoni and Jon Favreau — “Ahsoka,” and the larger “Star Wars” biosphere, is still striving to balance the breezy nonchalance of 1977 alongside decades of legacy. It wants to be fun and thoughtful. Sometimes that means characters sigh a lot. Other times it results in a wonderful sequence in which Rosario Dawson is dropped into Ray Harryhausen-ish special-effect battles.

Sometimes I wonder if the people who create “Star Wars” today are the loneliest people around, both loved and hated by generations who can’t decide what they want anymore. “Ahsoka,” so far, leaves us wondering where “Star Wars” is now. Do we still love it? Do we need it? Do we want more people to come in and fill the gaps of old stories? Or write new stories? Elevate new voices? My answer, I guess, is yes, yes, yes, but then again: Yes, we could all use a break. From Batman and Indiana Jones and Vin Diesel, too. That’s been the lesson of our “Barbie” summer, and it’s long been the lesson of “Star Wars”: Absence grows the heart.

Also, the montrals.

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(Christopher Borrelli is a features reporter/columnist for the Chicago Tribune.)

Column: ‘The Blind Side’ and Hollywood’s willful blindness to the truth

Chicago Tribune — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 19:29:47 +0000

Nina Metz | Chicago Tribune

What kind of fidelity to the truth do you expect from Hollywood?

The 2009 movie “The Blind Side” purports to tell the story of Michael Oher, a Black high school student rescued from poverty and neglect by the Tuohys, a wealthy white family who embraced him as one of their own, and whose love and selfless care guided him on a path that would eventually land him a career in the NFL.

Last week, Oher filed a petition in a Tennessee court that challenges not only the validity of that portrayal, but alleges the couple did not adopt him — as they claimed — but tricked him, at age 18, into signing a document that made the couple his conservators for the last two decades.

As reported by ESPN, the petition alleges the Tuohys “used their power as conservators to strike a deal that paid them and their two birth children millions of dollars in royalties from an Oscar-winning film that earned more than $300 million, while Oher got nothing for a story ‘that would not have existed without him.’ In the years since, the Tuohys have continued calling the 37-year-old Oher their adopted son and have used that assertion to promote their foundation as well as Leigh Anne Tuohy’s work as an author and motivational speaker.”

“The Blind Side” received mixed reviews upon its release. Many noted its white-savior tropes. Even so, the movie was nominated for two Oscars, including best picture. Sandra Bullock won for her portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy, adding a sheen of art, status and validity to what Oher claims is a fundamentally bogus story.

Bullock is not to blame for the circumstances between Oher and the Tuohys. But she benefited financially and reputationally from the film. As viewers, it’s worth thinking through the ways she and others involved with the film, including the studio (Warner Bros.) and writer-director John Lee Hancock, are part of the apparatus that enshrined the story for everyone’s profit but Oher’s.

He has consistently pushed back against the film. “I felt like it portrayed me as dumb instead of as a kid who had never had consistent academic instruction and ended up thriving once he got it,” he writes in his 2011 memoir. It doesn’t matter whether the intentions of all involved were cynical or sincere if the movie is a lie.

White filmmakers have a habit of trafficking in these themes and Oscar voters have a habit of rewarding them for it. The 2019 best picture winner “Green Book” depicts a growing friendship between the Black pianist Dr. Don Shirley and his white driver Tony Lip. The latter worked as a chauffeur for a concert tour across the South in the early 1960s and, at various moments, Tony-as-bodyguard comes to the rescue.

The film was co-written by director Peter Farrelly along with Brian Hayes Currie and Tony’s son Nick Vallelonga. They based the script on letters Tony wrote home during the tour, as well as later conversations between Vallelonga and his father that were taped for posterity. Upon the movie’s release, Time magazine reported that, according to Vallelonga, “everything depicted in the film ‘Green Book’ happened in real life.”

Shirley’s relatives were not contacted and they had no input. In fact, after the film won the Oscar, Vallelonga noted: “I didn’t even know they really existed until after we were making the film, and we contacted his estate for music.”

The creative parties became a mechanism that perpetuated and circulated what the Shirley family has described as a “symphony of lies.” Maybe there’s nuance behind each person’s decision to work on the movie. Maybe they didn’t ask enough questions.

Hollywood executives likely prefer it that way.

Six months ago, podcast hosts Len Webb and Vincent Williams released a multi-part series called “The Class of ‘89″ analyzing notable Black films of the year. One detail that jumps out, according to Webb: “You have the disregard by the Academy of ‘Do the Right Thing,’ which is overtly about race from the Black perspective vs. the old tropes that are in play in ‘Driving Miss Daisy,’ which were the prevailing narratives about the Black experience as far as Hollywood was concerned.”

The latter won best picture. The former wasn’t even nominated.

In 2012, “The Help” was nominated for best picture and Octavia Spencer won an Oscar for her performance. The film is about the lives of Black domestic workers and the white woman who takes an interest in their stories. Years later, star Viola Davis (also Oscar-nominated for her role) said she regretted doing it: “There’s a part of me that feels like I betrayed myself, and my people, because I was in a movie that wasn’t ready” to tell the whole truth.

Davis is talking about a larger emotional truth. That’s just as important as verifiable facts.

“The Blind Side” was adapted from a 2006 nonfiction book by Michael Lewis that includes this stunning quote from Sean Tuohy: “Michael’s gift is that the good Lord gave him the ability to forget. He’s mad at no one and doesn’t really care what happened.” Does that sound like emotional truth — or the denial of a person’s full humanity?

Lewis and Sean Tuohy have a long, ongoing and mutually beneficial connection; they were high school classmates and remain friendly still. Personal relationships between writer and subject can cloud a person’s judgment and there’s an old journalism saying that speaks to this: If your mother says she loves you, check it out.

It’s telling that Lewis never fact-checked the Tuohys’ claims that they adopted Oher. He took their word for it — and then amplified the lie. “They showered him with resources and love,” Lewis said recently of the Tuohys. “That he’s suspicious of them is breathtaking.” Maybe what’s breathtaking is that Lewis’ first instinct wasn’t a horrified moment of self-reflection: Did I get this story wrong? Did I misrepresent Oher’s experience — and to my own profit? What are my own biases that might have led to that?

White people get jumpy at the word “racism,” but there’s no other term to describe these films collectively, or to think through the decisions that resulted in how these stories were shaped.

Let’s go back to the original question: What kind of fidelity to the truth do you expect from Hollywood? When anything is adapted to the screen and accompanied by the words “true story” along with “based on,” “inspired by” or any other squirrelly disclaimer in between, it has a way of becoming settled fact in the minds of viewers. That puts the onus on us to treat these stories with more scrutiny. It also means filmmakers bear a responsibility beyond simply giving audiences a good time.

If you go to the websites of Leigh Anne Tuohy and the family’s foundation, both sell merchandise branded in connection with the film’s message. One T-shirt says: “Families don’t have to match.”

Another reads: “Property of The Blind Side 2009 Athletic Dept.” That’s a common riff on school-issued T-shirts. In light of Oher’s allegations, the word “property” takes on an entirely different and chilling context.

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(Nina Metz is a Chicago Tribune critic who covers TV and film.)

Chicago woman allegedly stalked Trump’s teen son at Florida school months before threatening to kill him

Chicago Tribune — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 18:59:12 +0000

By Jason Meisner, Chicago Tribune

A Chicago woman accused of threatening to kill former President Donald Trump and his teenage son Barron in June had traveled to the boy’s Florida school months earlier, where she was questioned outside by law enforcement, court and police records show.

Tracy Marie Fiorenza, 41, was arrested in Chicago this week following the unsealing of a federal criminal complaint in Florida charging her with transmitting threats to kill another person, which carries up to five years in prison.

At a detention hearing at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on Monday, prosecutors revealed that Fiorenza traveled in March to the Palm Beach County school where Trump’s son attends and “had an encounter with a sheriff.”

In asking that Fiorenza be held without bond, Rosenbloom cited her encounter with police in Florida, saying it showed “these are not idle threats from a behind a keyboard.”

Police reports obtained by the Tribune through an open records request revealed a security guard at the Oxbridge Academy in unincorporated Palm Beach County called 911 at about 7:30 a.m. on March 7 and reported that a woman named “Tracy” was standing outside the front gate asking about Barron Trump.

The security guard told police the woman was a “known stalker of a high-profile student,” according to the Palm Beach County sheriff’s reports. She had previously harassed people at the school by phone in October, claiming in a string of calls that “President Trump’s son attends the school” but that officials “were not following protocol,” according to the documents.

Fiorenza told a sheriff’s deputy at the scene that she wanted to talk to the headmaster because she’d “conducted her own investigation” into whether Barron was at the school, according to the report.

School officials said she was trespassing and would be arrested if she returned to the school, according to the report. Fiorenza was issued a warning and left the property. Later that afternoon, agents with the U.S. Secret Service responding to the incident found her at a nearby gas station and drove her back to her hotel, the report stated.

Two months later, on May 21, Fiorenza emailed the headmaster of the school and wrote, “I will state that I will shoot Donald Trump Sr. AND Baron Trump (sic) straight in the face at any opportunity that I get!” according to the five-page criminal complaint.

She allegedly sent a similar email to the same headmaster threatening the younger Trump’s life in early June, according to the complaint.

In June, a U.S. Secret Service agent reached out to Fiorenza and arranged a meeting at the agency’s Chicago headquarters, where Fiorenza was shown copies of the emails, according to the complaint.

Fiorenza “confirmed that she intentionally wrote them and sent them via email” from her then-residence in southwest suburban Plainfield, the complaint stated.

At Wednesday’s detention hearing, Rosenbloom said Fiorenza “poses a real danger” and should be denied bond. He acknowledged there may be mental health issues underlying the conduct, but said there were no conditions of release that could guarantee the safety of the community.

“The threats here are extremely violent in nature,” Rosenbloom said. He said in addition to the emails mentioned in the complaint, Fiorenza has sent numerous other communications to “a large group” of others, including government officials and celebrities, claiming she was being attacked by “bad actors.”

Another letter obtained by the Secret Service showed Fiorenza was trying in 2018 to “reach people who worked in White House,” Rosenbloom said.

The hearing was marred by several outbursts from Fiorenza, who started shaking her head during the prosecutor’s argument and then spoke directly to the judge, even as her attorney beseeched her to stop.

“I have been contacting the school for years trying to get them to follow mandated reporting protocol,” Fiorenza said. “People are not trained in the technology involved… I was going to pass out flyers to parents warning them before school started because no one was listening to me.”

She also claimed that Donald Trump is the leader of a pedophile ring and said that when she was a Chicago Public Schools teacher, the government followed her students and used “remote sexual stimulation” on them.

A Facebook page linked to Fiorenza and still publicly viewable stated she is a former social studies teacher and attended Carl Sandburg High School in Orland Park. The profile contains numerous violent and anti-Trump images and claims, as well as references to the “elite organization” of the Illuminati.

Her court-appointed attorney, Daniel Hesler, said that while the allegations are “pretty alarming,” there was “really no evidence she’s a threat to anyone in the real world.”

“There is nothing suggesting she is actually an aggressive person,” Hesler said.

Hesler also said that Fiorenza told him “psychotronic weapons are communicating directly into her head and she’s just trying to stop it.”

“She would never actually get close to Barron Trump because she’s afraid of him,” he said. “This is all a little wacky but it doesn’t say that she’s a danger.”

Fiorenza objected to the comment from her attorney, saying “I have a masters degree in psychology. I am not delusional!”

U.S Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cummings ordered Fiorenza remain in custody pending transfer to the Southern District of Florida. She’s currently being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, records show.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

Chicago woman arrested on federal charges she threatened to kill Donald Trump and son Barron

Chicago Tribune — Mon, 21 Aug 2023 20:06:54 +0000

By Jason Meisner, Chicago Tribune

A Chicago woman was arrested Monday on federal charges alleging she threatened to kill former President Donald Trump and his 17-year-old son Barron.

Tracy Marie Fiorenza, 41, was charged in a criminal complaint unsealed in Florida last week. She was arrested in Chicago Monday morning and is scheduled to have an initial appearance at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse at 3 p.m.

The charges were first reported by the online newsletter CourtWatch.

The five-page complaint alleged that on May 21, Fiorenza emailed the headmaster of a Palm Beach County school and wrote, “I will state that I will shoot Donald Trump Sr. AND Baron Trump (sic) straight in the face at any opportunity that I get!”

She allegedly sent a similar email to the same headmaster threatening the younger Trump’s life two weeks later, according to the complaint.

Barron Trump has attended a private school in Palm Beach since his family left the White House, though the charges do not identify the school where the messages were allegedly sent.

In June, a U.S. Secret Service agent reached out to Fiorenza and arranged a meeting at the agency’s Chicago headquarters, where Fiorenza was shown copies of the emails, according to the complaint.

Fiorenza “confirmed that she intentionally wrote them and sent them via email” from her then-residence in southwest suburban Plainfield, the complaint stated.

A Facebook page linked to Fiorenza and still publicly viewable stated she is a former social studies teacher and attended Carl Sandburg High School in Orland Park.

The profile contains numerous violent and anti-Trump images and claims, as well as references to the “elite organization” of the Illuminati.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

‘Blue Beetle’ review: A reluctant superhero in a better-than-average DC Comics movie

Chicago Tribune — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 19:20:53 +0000

Michael Phillips | (TNS) Chicago Tribune

“Blue Beetle” works, basically, and that puts it ahead of the game for most DC Comics-derived movies. Its scale is more human than corporate. And it’s really nice to get out of Gotham and visit a new fictional urban center: Palmera City, imagined here as Miami with a hint of “Blade Runner,” if “Blade Runner” enjoyed a little sunshine.

The Blue Beetle character has been around since before World War II, in comics, as a radio serial, on TV and in different iterations. This is the first feature film on the subject, about the teenager Jaime Reyes — just graduated from Gotham U, prelaw, dim prospects — who gets a face-full and then a full-body invasion of alien biotechnology. This transforms him into the Blue Beetle, which means he becomes the target of the nefarious Kord Industries, the company developing an army of weaponized humanoid “security forces,” aka Robocops but worse.

That part of “Blue Beetle” may be narratively necessary, but I do not care about that part. What works for me is the material devoted to a specific Mexican American family (Jaime’s), living in the Edge Keys neighborhood of Palmera City. The Reyes’ neighborhood is gentrifying, fast, with rents tripling all over. We are a long way from the vaguely inhuman wealth of your Bruce Waynes and your Tony Starks, though of course audiences love imagining having all the toys and destruction that go with it. The scarcity of money in the hero’s working-class realm doesn’t sneak up on you; it’s a fact of life, every minute. Money may not be everything, but as that dancing superhero Gene Kelly said in “An American in Paris,” when you don’t have money, “it takes on a curious significance.”

Xolo Maridueña stars in “Blue Beetle.” (Warner Bros. Pictures/TNS)

The best superhero movies, either DC or Marvel, always have a foot in the pressures and terrors of the real world, and not simply in daydreams of terrorist slaughter. In “Blue Beetle,” Jaime (played by Xolo Maridueña) has saddled his family with college debts. For reasons the movie relies shamelessly on coincidence to establish, Jaime visits Kord headquarters to meet with Jenny Kord, the one truehearted member of the Kord empire. She’s played by Bruna Marquezine, who buoys the spirit of the film.

Jaime is there to discuss a job but ends up with the alien being known as the Scarab inside his body, free of charge. In his Blue Beetle suit of armor, Jaime can fly and customize any sort of weaponry he likes with the help of Khaji-Da, his own his personal Siri-type voice-over coach.

Director Ángel Manuel Soto (”Charm City Kings”) and screenwriter Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer (”Miss Bala”) set up periodic smackdowns between B.B. and the similarly powerful Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo), a Kord Industries prototype of mass destruction. Susan Sarandon’s sniveling CEO pulls the strings and drops in and out of the plot as needed, muttering threats and ordering attacks on Jaime’s family.

She’s strictly stock material, but “Blue Beetle” is largely successful in making Carapax more than a bunch of mean hardware. Also, the Reyes family really does feel like a family. They’re all good screen company: Elpidia Carrillo and Damián Alcázar portray Jaime’s parents, with the serenely majestic Adriana Barraza as his grandmother (with a helpful guerrilla fighter past). Belisso Escobedo delights as his sharp-witted sister and George Lopez, sporting a beard that appears to have set him free as a performer, plays resourceful if paranoid Uncle Rudy, screaming for the downfall of all the colonialist imperialist forces at work in Palmera City.

Is the movie overtly political? Yes, and often wittily; Lopez has a line about what a fascist Batman can be (though he’s unseen here), and every verbal and visual detail regarding socioeconomic divides, or micro- and macro-aggressive racism, is there on purpose. Virtually none of that stuff’s in the trailers, of course.

While “Blue Beetle” isn’t the same representation achievement the first “Black Panther” was for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the movie works on a canvas broad enough to include some wrenching emotional sequences along with the usual superhero selling points. By that I mean: blue bolts of electricity and semi-endless combat. Ten or 11 superhero movies ago, I think I hit my limit on that front. But at least “Blue Beetle” imagines a world, very much like our own, to go with it.

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‘BLUE BEETLE’

3 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for some suggestive references, sequences of action, language, and violence)

Running time: 2:07

How to watch: In theaters Friday

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In 40 years as a jazzman, Bill Harrison had ups and downs and one night dressed as a Conehead

Chicago Tribune — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 18:53:06 +0000

Rick Kogan | Chicago Tribune

If you think the world of a professional musician is all great tunes and glamour, you should have been at a downtown hotel on Dec. 13, 1983, when jazz bassist Bill Harrison and the more than dozen other members of a band set to play a corporate concert were instructed to don Conehead costumes, inspired by characters made famous by “Saturday Night Live,” because the party planners though it would amuse the crowd.

Harrison survived that night. He survived all the other nights in his 40-year career as a working member of the jazz world. He played bass in theaters, hotels and nightclubs. He played at weddings, private parties and bowling alleys.

He has played with such jazz giants as Clark Terry, Max Roach, Josie Falbo.

He also played, more times than he can count, “The Chicken Dance,” “Achy Breaky Heart,” “Margaritaville,” “Celebration” and so many others on a “list (that) makes me want to go take a shower.”

Like the majority of professional musicians, he was mostly anonymous. Or, as he writes, “The final essential quality for competence as a sideman is understanding and accepting your role in the jobbing juggernaut. You’re never the star of the show. … This is a bitter pill for some musicians to swallow but I savored the obscurity of jobbing with gratitude.”

He details his musical life in an intimate, honest and self-aware new book, “Making the Low Notes: A Life in Music” (Open Books Press).

It has received much praise, the jazz critic Neil Tesser calling it an “insightful journey.” It is funny. It is lively. It is poignant. It’s a great book.

There is a palpable immediacy to it. Harrison has kept a “written record of every gig, rehearsal, social occasion, lesson (taken and given), trip … and almost every other notable event” that occurred over his musical decades and this has allowed him to “verify dates and refresh my often-faulty memories of certain pivotal events.”

Born and raised on the East Coast, Harrison got hooked on music as a kid in middle school in 1968, giving a rendition of “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” He was not good, his playing sounding like “a nanny goat with an upset stomach” he writes, but “shocking applause erupts as I stumble offstage in a sweat-drenched daze” and “as I retreat to the bosom of backstage, a wave of pleasure pulses through my body. The moms and dads were applauding for me. Was that jolt of approval worth the jazzed-up breath, the jittery hands, the jumping-bean heart?”

The answer, unequivocally, was yes, and though he would aspire to a degree in film when he attended Northwestern University, he was drawn to other musicians on campus and together they started performing around the area. It was much fun, even though as he writes “part of me knew I was as green as moldy mozzarella, my increasingly busy schedule gave me the unwarranted impression that I was on a surefire path to a successful career as a professional musician.”

His arrogance compelled him to drop out of NU, get a music degree from DePaul University and start his career. He played all the best clubs, and enjoyed working in the pit for such musicals as “Wicked,” “The Lion King” and “Always … Patsy Cline.” He had long been a music teacher, and an admired one.

But in time “the pillars of my musical life came tumbling down.” He was beset by some physical ailments such as a bad back and arthritis. He had gotten a master’s degree in therapy and he was increasingly busy with a psychotherapy practice, saying, “Mental health counseling felt more and more like home. More than half of my clients being artists.” He wrote that practicing psychotherapy “connected me deeply with each of my clients, much as playing music connected me with my fellow musicians.”

His final performance came in December 2017, but he never intended to write this book. Still, he has always been writing and the imposed isolation of the pandemic only fueled his literary ambitions. He published a few stories in small magazines and eventually had enough for this fine book. He is working on his next, saying, “You’ll notice that there is not a great deal, very little actually, in this book about my family. The new one will be family stuff. I had, shall we say, a very colorful father.”

In person (and in print), Harrison is bright, fun and introspective, saying, “I had to face the scary stuff, the things that some might think should remain hidden. I believe the reader wants to be able to trust the writer and if I wasn’t making myself vulnerable, I wouldn’t be able to show who I really am.”

Here’s an example: “The bass might have a feminine shape, but the heft and sound suggest the masculine to me. I suppose it’s possible the instrument’s complex allusion to sexuality played a role in my choosing it over the brass instruments, but if so, that aspect was burning deep in my subconscious.”

He lives in the South Loop with his wife, Nina Corwin, also a therapist and a talented poet, to whom he has been married since 2013. They often go out to hear classical music. Every once in a while they will go out to hear jazz. They have a cat, whose name is Jazzy.

In their living room is his old companion, the upright bass that he toted around for so long. In his book, he writes that “It tethers me to my roots, reminds me to listen beyond the words and to respond with compassion and humility.”

He tells me, “Sometimes I’ll walk past it and stop and play, for a minute or two.”

rkogan@chicagotribune.com

‘Homecoming’: New book by a ‘Dreamer’ humanizes the journey of undocumented children in US

Chicago Tribune — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 19:34:34 +0000

Laura Rodríguez Presa | Chicago Tribune (TNS)

CHICAGO — Although it was 30 years ago, Margarita Quiñones-Peña still remembers hugging her grandfather goodbye when her pregnant mother took her and her older sister by the hand to make their way to Chicago from Mexico to meet their father.

She was 3 years old. Though the memories are blurred, the feeling of leaving the place she knew as home has never faded, she said.

She is now 33 and still has not been able to return. Tita, as she was called by her beloved grandfather, is undocumented. She was brought to this country unauthorized as a child. For a long time, she was ashamed of her status and felt powerless, until she eventually realized that thanks to her family’s resilience, they had created a home of their own in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, despite all their struggles and sacrifices.

“There is nothing to be ashamed of. Rather, be proud of the sacrifices our parents have made and our resilience to succeed despite being undocumented,” said Quiñones-Peña, now a software engineer, a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago and a yoga instructor. Thankfully, she said, in 2012 she became a ”Dreamer,” or a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program created under then-President Barack Obama, which provided her with a work permit and protection from deportation.

Her journey, she said, was in fact a “homecoming.” And it is one that she shares with hundreds of other children of immigrants, whether they were brought here decades ago or are children of the migrants who are now arriving in Chicago by the thousands.

“Homecoming” is the name of the children’s book Quiñones wrote based on her story to honor her journey and to empower herself, her family and other undocumented children, she said. “I want them to know what is possible,” she said.

All of the book’s proceeds will be donated to help immigrants currently seeking asylum in Chicago, Quiñones-Peña said.

Margarita Quiñones-Peña plays with a young migrant after reading her children's book aloud at a Pilsen shelter. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS)
"Homecoming," a new children's book by Margarita Quiñones-Peña. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS)
Margarita Quiñones-Peña, who was brought by her parents to Chicago's Little Village neighborhood when she was 3 and is a DACA recipient, hugs a young migrant after reading her children's book aloud on July 9, 2023, at a Pilsen shelter. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS)
A young migrant reads along with children's book "Homecoming" by Margarita Quiñones-Peña, on July 9, 2023, at a Pilsen shelter. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

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On a recent Sunday, Quiñones-Peña celebrated her book launch by reading it to a group of migrant children who live at a community-run shelter in the Pilsen neighborhood, with her parents by her side.

In Chicago, more than 11,000 asylum-seekers have arrived over the last year. Many families with children continue to live in temporary shelters.

The book, which includes an illustration of Quiñones-Peña and her family looking at the historic Little Village Arch, is in Spanish and English. She shares her memories of crossing the border on a Halloween night dressed up as a princess with her mother and older sister, who was 4. She recalls those who helped them along the way and describes eventually reuniting with her father in Chicago.

At the end of the book, Quiñones-Peña shares the origin of the story with pictures of her family. It is followed by a portion where children who read it can write their own immigration journey.

The project, she said, was born out of love for her family and the desire to come to terms with her own story. Sharing her truth and finding power in it was liberating, Quiñones-Peña said.

“There are hundreds of people who have experienced this, but we feel the need to hide it. Or we just never talk about it out of shame or fear that we will be judged or even punished for it,” she said.

There are about 600,000 DACA recipients in the U.S., but nearly 3 million undocumented youths are eligible for relief, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Even if they are eligible, most cannot apply to the program because it was halted during former President Donald Trump’s administration and is working its way through the courts.

“As a child, I didn’t fully understand what was happening, but it was this journey that dictated who I would become,” Quiñones-Peña wrote in the book. “Although we are currently protected from deportation, we live with limited rights and despite our contributions and knowing no other home, we do not yet have a path to citizenship.”

For most of her life, she was secretive about her status, afraid of stigma and judgment, not even sharing it with her partner.

With the book, she wants recently arrived children to know that there is nothing wrong with being undocumented. “They, too, can call this city a home,” she said.

For most of her life, Quiñones-Peña did not know the full story of how her mother was able to cross the southern border, pregnant and with two toddlers. About two years ago, Quiñones-Peña finally decided to ask her mom, she said.

With tears in her eyes, her mother, Antonia Quiñones, opened up while the two sat in the kitchen. It wasn’t easy, recalled her mother, now 63. It was a memory that she had buried away, trying to forget the painful experience.

But it was incredible, Quiñones-Peña said, “Instead of being embarrassed or ashamed, I realized it was such a beautiful story because of the intentionality and community that came together to help us get here from the beginning.”

“That needs to be celebrated,” Quiñones-Peña said.

In 1993, Antonia Quiñones decided to leave their native town of Santiago Papasquiaro in Durango, Mexico, to meet with her husband, Eduardo Quiñones, in Chicago. For years, Eduardo had traveled back and forth, but it wasn’t enough to keep the family together, Antonia recalled.

“I wanted my family to be together,” she said. “But I also knew that their father returning to live in Mexico was not realistic.”

So even though she was pregnant, she made her way to the border.

“It was a sacrifice, but it was worth it,” she said. “I know many people don’t understand it, but as parents, we make those decisions for our children; it was all for them.”

The family settled in Little Village, or La Villita, and Antonia worked in maintenance and care, and Eduardo, now 66, as a factory worker, among other jobs. Despite their undocumented status, they were able to put their three daughters through college.

When Quiñones-Peña gifted the book to her mother on Mother’s Day, she said Antonia had no words. She did not want her daughter to publish the book, worried that Margarita would be criticized.

But Quiñones-Peña was inspired when the first few buses of asylum-seekers began to arrive in the city. So she taught extra yoga classes and saved as much money as possible to get the project started.

“I’m so proud of my daughter because she is so strong,” said her father.

Quiñones-Peña is the only one in her family who is still undocumented. Though she has DACA, she does not have a path to citizenship, one that would allow her to visit Mexico. Her parents became citizens after a family member sponsored them, but due to complicated immigration policies, Quiñones-Peña could not be included in the process. Her older sister, María Cecilia Quiñones-Peña, 34, is now a citizen by marriage and her younger sister, Veronica Quiñones, 29, is a citizen because she was born in Chicago.

“But I don’t lose hope,” Quiñones-Peña said. It was a promise she made to her now-deceased grandfather. She has faith that one day she will return to the place where she was born, to the plaza where her grandfather used to sell seeds to make a living while she played with her older sister.

Regardless of her residency status, Quiñones-Peña said, the Southwest Side of Chicago will forever be home.

Column: In defense of background TV

Chicago Tribune — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 18:33:41 +0000

Nina Metz | (TNS) Chicago Tribune

Nearly half of the top 10 streaming shows in late June were “library” shows. Meaning, shows that originated somewhere else (usually traditional TV) and are now licensed by a streaming platform. The popular shows in June were “Suits,” “S.W.A.T.,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “NCIS.”

Looking at that list, journalist-turned-screenwriter Oriana Schwindt made an observation: “People love watching shows with lots of episodes. Shows with strong episodic structure. Make more shows like this.”

She’s not wrong.

I’m always baffled by the snobbery toward background TV. Streamers prefer to call it “second-screen content,” aka the kind of shows you pick when you’re tired or distracted by your phone — or your kids, or that sink full of dishes you’re washing, or pile of laundry you’re folding.

The original run of “Law & Order” is high-quality background TV. It’s formulaic, but that’s a feature, not a bug. The writing is just spirited and smart and novel enough to provide variety and unpredictability within a predictable structure. There can be something comforting and reassuring about that structure.

Too bad the same can’t be said of the newer episodes of the series, which relaunched last year. It’s as if everybody forgot how to make the show — or, frankly, any kind of show like it.

Maybe that’s because Hollywood is out of practice. The rise of serialized shows have become the default and — with shorter seasons and loftier ambitions, at least on the surface — they are antithetical to all the qualities needed for a good background show.

Actor, writer and director Justine Bateman recently told The Hollywood Reporter that streamers have taken to calling background shows “visual Muzak.”

I’ve no doubt there are executives who talk about this kind of programming in the most cynical, creative-sapping terms, and I’m sympathetic to writers who find this dispiriting.

That doesn’t mean this type of show is inherently bad, or has no value or appeal.

With streaming originals, episodes aren’t meant to stand on their own, as a complete story. But that’s really the key to background TV: You don’t necessarily need to keep up with a show’s ongoing lore to understand what you’re watching. You can dip in and dip out at your convenience, and there are distinct pleasures to be had when a show doesn’t have the specter of homework about it.

I remember during the original run of “Breaking Bad,” episodes would pile up on my DVR. Not because I didn’t like the show, but because watching it required a certain level of concentration and mental engagement. After a long day or even a long week, sometimes you’re in the mood for something less taxing.

But if streamers only rely on library shows to fill this niche, at some point, we’re going to run out.

For now, there’s “Suits,” which arrived on Netflix in June and set a viewing record for an acquired series (library show) on the streaming platform.

But not all background TV is created equal. Some of it is … not good.

“Suits” ran for nine seasons, from 2011-2019, on the USA Network. Like most basic cable networks, USA has since abandoned original scripted programming, which has led to a dearth of my beloved background TV.

A winking drama about corporate and legal sharks maneuvering for power, “Suits” is great to look at. Everyone is beautiful and dressed impeccably, with Brioni suits and body-con dresses as far as the eye can see. The offices are a wonder of glass and blond wood and clean lines. And the writing doesn’t take itself too seriously (nor does it take any of the legal wrangling all that seriously either.) The format is light but gives the illusion of complexity. One of the young associates is a fraud — he never went to law school — but he’s the favorite of the firm’s cockiest partners, so he’s in.

Catching up with the show again, I remembered why I soured on it during its initial run. After kicking things off fairly well in the first season, the show resorts to cycling through the same four or five storylines because the characters only relate to one another through conflict and gritted teeth.

“You betrayed me!”

“Oh yeah? That’s because you betrayed me first!”

There’s a version of this conversation in every episode, delivered at scenery-chewing levels.

Structurally, “Suits” relies too heavily on a revolving door of Big Bads — someone is always threatening the firm’s future — instead of committing to a case-of-the-week format. (The constant variations on the takedown storyline is a crutch “Chicago Fire” also employs, with equally dull results.)

Background shows don’t have to be so uninspired.

It’s instructive to go back and watch even older series to see how this sort of thing can be done well. I keep returning to “Murder, She Wrote,” which might be the epitome of brilliant background TV. It works whether you’re paying attention or not.

Over 12 seasons, it remains entertaining, but it’s also informative about the way episodic television can work when it’s treated as its own art form. I’m referring to the so-called “bookend” episodes that don’t even feature the main character, novelist and amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher.

Angela Lansbury in “Murder She Wrote.” (Pino Granata/Mondadori Portfolio via Zuma Press/TNS)

Midway through the show’s run, star Angela Lansbury was getting burned out, so producers devised a workaround: Create stand-alone episodes (as many as nine in one season) with different investigators at the story’s center. Sometimes it’s a cop. One time it’s a law student played by Shaun Cassidy. More frequently, it’s a dashing and witty jewel thief-turned-insurance investigator played by Keith Michell.

The show’s writers had to create new lead characters — new stars, essentially — who were compelling enough that they could, in theory, carry their own series. A lot of care was put into establishing these worlds and there was no luxury of “it gets better four episodes in” — the premise and the performances had to grab audiences from the word go. The actor taking on the mystery-solving role had to have an immediate handle on the character and make you believe this story was worth watching, despite the absence of Jessica Fletcher.

And all of it had to be set up, played out and wrapped up in under an hour. That requires so much skill and economy from a writer.

The history of TV is, to an extent, the history of various genres and styles of entertainment going in and out of fashion. But I suspect there will always be a demand for background TV.

Schwindt told me she looks at the Nielsen streaming reports every week and “for years now, I’ve seen ‘NCIS,’ ‘Grey’s’ and other highly episodic shows in the top 10. We have to go back to having a nice mix of episodic and serialized TV.”

One type of show isn’t better than the other and the TV landscape is vast enough that it should be offering variety, from the serious and sophisticated to shows that work as pleasant television companions while you’re paying your bills or in bed with a cold.

Life is hard. It’s OK, sometimes, for TV to be easy.

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Nina Metz is a Tribune critic

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Ana Castillo’s new book makes you see stories everywhere. Or maybe they’re ghosts.

Chicago Tribune — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 18:20:20 +0000

By Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune

Ana Castillo reclined on the off-white gallery chair and I apologized for looking like a slob, but where I had to be next required more informal clothing, and so, I apologized —

“For not dressing professionally?”

Yeah, I laughed nervously, I’m driving to —

“A baseball game?”

She didn’t laugh but smiled flatly and I couldn’t tell if she was insulted or joking or not joking but kind of joking. I never do know. She wore white pants stylishly frayed at the cuffs and a white sweater beneath a denim jacket embroidered elegantly on the sleeves, a piece from a Spanish designer, but Castillo is not the type to give plugs and decides not to spill the label.

I’ve never entirely gotten a handle on Ana Castillo. Though, to be fair, who has? One of Chicago’s best living writers (and a 2022 inductee of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame), she’s often mentioned in the same breath as that other great Chicana writer from Chicago, Sandra Cisneros. She writes haunting fiction on life in Chicago and at the Mexico border. But she’s a better poet. And not too shabby a visual artist. And a good playwright. Also, as an essayist, she’s indispensable on feminism from the perspective of a woman with Chicago and Mexican indigenous roots.

Plus, she draws a pretty fun picture of … farm animals smoking cigars?

What is this? I asked her, standing before such an image, hanging now, alongside others from Castillo, through Oct. 9, at the Hilton Asmus Contemporary gallery in River North. It was made in 2021 at her home in New Mexico and the title is “El Club de las Xismosas Poetas,” and like many of her drawings here, it’s selling for about $2,900. A relative steal, particularly if you’re a connoisseur of art made by seminal literary figures.

“Who is this?” Castillo asked. “It’s haters! It’s called (in English) the Club of Gossipers. There’s a snake there, there’s a pig, there’s a goat, and there’s another little pig and that’s a rat. So basically, it’s the people who get together, sit around and talk about you.”

And the figures in the drawing above that smoking pig?

“I don’t know. You tell me. ‘Mother & Child,’ it’s titled.”

I see a cat, only longer, with wings. No, wait: two mice.

“Maybe. Whimsical pets. They are feel-good drawings and you could have them in your bedroom and see them every day. Those kind of drawings. Here is another one with animals. I have a tendency to draw like little hummingbirds but them, see, there are bugs crawling along the bottom. Because that’s what life is like. Where we live in New Mexico, we have dogs and we’re surrounded by turtles and frogs. In these kind of compositions, I tend to have the sea, earth, sky, the universe. You can also see snails here, and Trees of Life — I’m obsessed with Trees of Life. Oh, there’s a worm. I don’t know how many Trees of Life I have drawn. A lot. There’s the sun, the Earth. In my mind, it’s all part of reminding yourself of the environment. Environmental issues are very noticeable where I live. After I wrote (the 1993 breakout novel) ‘So Far From God,’ I was surprised to be recognized as an environmental activist because of that book. But that was my conscience coming out. I wrote about the day the dead birds fell from the sky. Which happened in New Mexico. A few years ago, universities started to look into that and try to figure out why. I found four or five (dead birds) and I thought one of the dogs was getting them, but no, these birds, they were just dropping out of the sky.”

Birds hit skyscrapers in Chicago all the time, I offered, lamely.

“I have a lot of windows at home it’s horrible when they hit windows, but no, I am literally talking about dead birds dropping out of the sky! (The universities) have come up with a lot of dumb things about these birds but nothing that’s like So this is why it’s happening!”

Castillo, who turned 70 in June, first left Chicago many decades ago, after graduating from Northeastern Illinois University; she headed to California to teach and help with the United Farm Workers movement there, led by Cesar Chavez. Ever since, she’s shuttled back and forth between the West Coast and the Southwest and Mexico and Chicago. “Doña Cleanwell Leaves Home,” her new collection of short stories, her first since 1996, features characters who occupy those very routes, particularly Chicago to Mexico and back. In “Ven,” a man reads his late sister’s diaries and retraces her footsteps in Mexico. In the title story, a wise high school graduate from Chicago is sent to Mexico by her father to find her mother, who abandoned the family several months earlier. In Castillo’s short stories, people in Chicago are often trying to unearth dark hidden truths.

She’s said reviewers have been characterizing her stories as about Mexicans “going back and forth.” But whereas “customary migration is them coming here to find ‘a better life,’ I found it interesting, and this wasn’t intentional, my characters go north to south — but move up in status. My family here didn’t have a pool or housekeeper. In Mexico, that might have been.”

She’s working on her next novel, “Isabel 2121,” using a related calculus: “There’s the future and past living simultaneously, based on string theory. So you have characters 500 years in the future, and characters at the conquest of Mexico, 500 years ago. It’s dystopian in 2121 and, for my ancestors, conquest was dystopian.”

She writes in the a.m. and makes art in the p.m.

The 20 pieces on display in River North are a sliver of hundreds of similar drawings she made in the past decade. It began in 2015 when she found herself with free time during a teaching job. She made the first drawings as a meditation, she said: “Hence the lines.”

Yes, the lines. Thin and tight and parallel, and there are so many of them, arranged into geometric blocks, swirling, like dizzying rabbit holes constructed of angular pinwheels.

Frankly, obsessive.

“It does seem I have gone mad,” Castillo said. “I did ask people if it seemed like I went mad here. They said, ‘No, not at all.’ They said it was ‘discipline.’” She drew the works freehand with a Sharpie and only occasionally employed a ruler. “‘Discipline’ doesn’t mean anything. I mean, I could have some obsessive disorder. I meditated years ago and you become accustomed to any ritual becoming a calming thing. We live in extreme quiet in New Mexico. We live in the desert. We hardly see anybody. You can see the sun set. Music from far off. Making lines like this, it’s like knitting a pattern of all of that.”

Castillo grew up on Taylor Street, crowded, very Italian.

“Then they built the (University of Illinois Chicago) campus on top of it and relocated everyone, including my family. But just blocks away. I was there 20 years. Then my family moved to Lakeview and bought a two-flat and I suppose we became North Siders.”

Were there ghosts? I asked.

Ghosts, imagined and metaphoric, float through much of her new book. “On Taylor Street? There were things no one in my family verified but I remember vividly. Ghosts in my culture, Mexican indigenous culture — we believe in ghosts. Everyone has a ghost sighting. The book opens with the dad saying, ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ I wanted to evoke the possibility (of ghosts), but it’s not the point. The point is the living. In ‘The Girl in the Green Dress,’ you have a woman hearing a story of a headless girl in the library.”

A Chicago Public Library branch.

“Right.”

And the librarian is caught overnight during a polar vortex.

“Yes.”

Why do you get to write about Chicago polar vortexes from the warmth of New Mexico?

“I know polar vortexes! I do! I know them well. When I was invited back to Dominican University — it was a vortex! They stay with you. In ‘Green Dress,’ that librarian is starting to freeze in there and go into hypothermia and she’s terrified at the possibility of a headless ghost and she’s thinking over her life and if she lives, she’ll make changes.”

We never learn what happens.

“I leave everything open, always.”

Indeed. As I’m leaving, just outside the gallery, the smoke from Canadian wildfires has made it to Wells Street and the daylight is unnerving. A commuter speed-walks past, staring into storefronts with his mouth shaped in a perfect “O.” A few doors down a woman sweeps dirt off the stoop of a Brazilian day spa as if she’s in a musical. She hums loudly and I wonder if there are Brazilian day spas in musicals. I don’t know why I am noticing this stuff, only that I am and those stories go on. As Castillo said, “We think a story is over, but there’s this other moment, then another year, and another time. And that is life. It is open-ended.”

cborrelli@chicagotribune.com

A summer road trip along Maine’s coastline will feed your soul and steal your heart

Chicago Tribune — Thu, 27 Jul 2023 20:29:05 +0000

Jaclyn Jermyn | for the Chicago Tribune

I don’t know what made my parents pack up the family in 2002 and spend our summer vacation in a small Maine town we had no connections to, but I have spent every summer since convinced there is no better place to be than Maine.

One of the most rural of the United States, Maine has a prevailing sense of rugged beauty knitting together the hardworking, historic towns that dot the state’s 3,500 miles of coastline. A road trip along the coast between Portland and Acadia National Park offers no shortage of stunning views, good eats and plenty of reasons why the state has long been called Vacationland.

Starting your journey in Portland, it’s easy to see how the city’s long life as a fishing and manufacturing center has melded into the current tourist economy. Think cobblestone streets, brick factories repurposed into shops and restaurants, and historic houses turned into eclectic hotels like Blind Tiger Guest House (163 Danforth St., Portland; larkhotels.com/hotels/blind-tiger). Blind Tiger’s 15 well-appointed rooms are spread across two restored 19th century homes in the West End neighborhood. The hotel’s name is a nod to the speakeasy that once existed on the premises, now a billiards room for guests.

PORTLAND, ME – JULY 21: A lobster boat is seen leaving the dock on July 21, 2012 in Portland, Maine. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Leave the car keys behind for the night and stroll over to Leeward (85 Free St., Portland; leewardmaine.com), an Italian-leaning, pasta-centric joint on Free Street. Leeward is a nautical term for being sheltered from the wind, but this would still be the place to go even on the mildest of days. Co-owners Jake and Raquel Stevens had just opened the restaurant’s doors when COVID-19 restrictions forced them back closed.

Thankfully, Leeward weathered the storm and even snagged a James Beard Award nomination for Best New Restaurant in 2022. Any of the fresh pasta on the menu is worth a taste, but if the stuffed squash blossoms — lightly fried and finished with a honey vinaigrette — are available, they are a must-order.

Feeling more snacky? In the East End neighborhood, there’s a veritable treasure trove of local businesses along Washington Avenue offering the perfect picnic goods. Start at The Shop (123 Washington Ave., Portland; portland.islandcreekoysters.com), the Maine outpost for Massachusetts-based Island Creek Oysters, for some tinned fish. Nearby, Maine & Loire wine shop and The Cheese Shop of Portland have the rest of the fixings for a proper feast, best enjoyed alfresco along the city’s Eastern Promenade.

In the morning, fuel up before hitting the road at Tandem Coffee + Bakery (742 Congress St., Portland; tandemcoffee.com), a cafe from Tandem Coffee Roasters housed in a converted midcentury gas station. Don’t miss the delicious baked goods from pastry chef Briana Holt, including inventive scone flavors like grapefruit poppy seed and apple feta.

DEER ISLE, MAINE – JULY 02: Lobstermen use a skiff get to their lobster boat moored near the Conary Cove Lobster Co Inc. wharf before heading out into the Gulf of Maine on July 02, 2019 in Deer Isle, Maine. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Leaving Portland, navigating is simple — Route 1 alone will get you almost all the way to Acadia. It’s a major north-south highway serving the entire East Coast, but a slower pace of life influences even the roads and the highway drops down to primarily two lanes. There’s plenty to see and there’s no hurry to see it.

In the town of Bath, nautical enthusiasts should check out the Maine Maritime Museum (243 Washington St., Bath; mainemaritimemuseum.org), where visitors can explore historic shipyard buildings standing in the shadow of Bath Iron Works, a major operational shipyard. It’s a rich visual of Maine’s long seafaring tradition.

Artists will love Rockland, Maine, home to both the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (21 Winter St., Rockland; cmcanow.org) and the Farnsworth Art Museum (16 Museum St., Rockland; farnsworthmuseum.org). The Farnsworth holds an extensive collection from the Wyeth family, including realist painter Andrew Wyeth. Rockland also hosts regular art walks where galleries and studios open their doors.

Somewhere in between, stop for a lobster roll — perhaps in Wiscasset at Red’s Eats (41 Water St., Wiscasset; redseatsmaine.com). There’s a reason lengthy lines regularly appear around this tiny roadside shack. Red’s lobster roll is a love letter to local Maine lobster, nothing is coming out mayonnaise-drenched here. Simplicity is key.

The sun rises as Virginia Oliver, 101, and her son Max, 78, head out to haul in their lobster traps in Penobscot Bay in Maine on July 31, 2021. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP) (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)

Back on the road, you’ll soon find yourself winding along the edge of Penobscot Bay. These are the views that inventor of the duplex system telegraph Joseph Barker Stearns saw from his grand estate, Norumbega, in nearby Camden. Named for a mythical New World settlement, The Norumbega (63 High St., Camden; norumbegainn.com) is now an 11-room inn. While there are no pillars of gold here like legends once suggested, guests are sure to find the space plenty luxurious after a recent, extensive interior renovation.

To get a new perspective on the ins and outs of the coastline, book a sail with Schooner Surprise (1 Bay View St., Camden; schoonersurprise.com), a 1918 yacht listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Leaving from Camden Harbor, Schooner Surprise offers everything from sunset sails with live acoustic music to birding and marine life tours. Whichever you choose, you’ll be cruising around the bay in style.

Traditional sailboats are reflected in a port in Rockland, Maine on August 5, 2018. (Photo by Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP) (Photo credit should read ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)

Those who prefer to remain landlubbers should instead check out Oyster River Winegrowers (31 Elm St., Camden; oysterriverwine.com), a small farm winery that has been crafting low-intervention wines and ciders since 2007. Let yourself be charmed by the beat-up beadboard walls and creaking floors as you sidle up to the no-frills Camden wine bar and order a glass of Carbonic Nation, a dry, endlessly drinkable red with the slightest bit of fizz.

Across the street, you’ll find Wolfpeach (50 Elm St., Camden; wolfpeachmaine.com). This buzzy restaurant stepped back from farm-to-table fine dining this spring, re-concepting into a pizza joint, slinging naturally leavened pies and delicious snacks to pair. Try the clam pie studded with plenty of garlic, parsley and lemon, or go classic with red sauce and locally made pepperoni. Finish the night on a sweet note with housemade ginger ice cream.

Continuing on, you’ll hit the region that Mainers refer to as “downeast” Maine — a nautical nickname for how winds would force sailors to sail downwind to travel east in warm months. Hopefully, you’ll feel no resistance as you turn off Route 1 and head southeast toward Mount Desert Island, the second-largest island on the Eastern Seaboard.

Within the town of Bar Harbor, stay at Terramor Outdoor Resort (1453 ME-102, Bar Harbor; terramoroutdoorresort.com) for a taste of the great outdoors without having to pitch your own tent. A division of Kampgrounds of America, Terramor is a far cry from roughing it. Luxury canvas tents all feature plush beds, Wi-Fi and access to private bathroom facilities. Plus, the grounds are situated just minutes from the entrance of Acadia National Park.

New England’s only national park, Acadia contains more than 150 miles of hiking trails along rocky headlands and through evergreen forests. Thrill-seekers might gravitate toward the Beehive Loop Trail, a 1.4-mile cliff hike that features steep granite stairs, iron-rung ladders and sweeping views of the Gulf of Maine.

DEER ISLE, MAINE – JULY 05: An aerial view from a drone shows a lobster boat as it navigates through the Gulf of Maine waters in to the Conary Cove Lobster Co Inc. wharf on July 05, 2019 in Deer Isle, Maine. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

For a post-hike treat, stop by the park’s Jordan Pond House (jordanpondhouse.com) restaurant, known for its signature warm popovers served with jam and butter. Enjoy your snack outside and admire the views of picturesque Jordan Pond. While you’re at it, order a fresh blueberry lemonade and toast Maine’s status as the largest U.S. producer of blueberries.

If you don’t mind a predawn wake-up, make the time to watch the sunrise from Cadillac Mountain. Don’t worry, no mountaineering in the dark is required — cars can take the Cadillac Summit Road with advance reservations. From there, you’ll be one of the first people in North America to see the sun rise. There are few better ways to fall for a place than to watch the sun glinting across the water’s surface, a new day beginning.

Jaclyn Jermyn is a freelance writer.