Laura and Her New “Compound Yellow” Space Is Something Not To Be Ignored

Laura Schaffer is an incredible woman, whose extrovert joys of the arts in Chicago probably would remind you of someone from the Beat Generation.

When I first went into what was formerly called the Southside Hub of Production space in Hyde Park—also known as SHoP (somewhere in the early 2010s decade), I got my first joys of enjoying live DIY events in that Chicago neighborhood, which included experimental and free jazz.

Then, as SHoP folded around the mid-2010s, Laura decided on a new endeavor—a new experimental DIY space out in the suburbs of Chicago with almost the same vibe, atmosphere, and excitement like what she did in the former SHoP—but with focuses on yellow paint and a mixed space of outdoor and indoor features. With all that thinking, a new DIY space in Oak Park, IL—called Compound Yellow—was born.

Laura said on a CBS2 Chicago news interview about her space is that Compound Yelllow “is an independent, multi-functional, artist-run space and artists’ residency.” From going to about 30 to 40 events there, I can see the big effect; Compound housed and accommodated numerous artists of a wide range of gifts---ranging from the urban permaculture activist, Nance Klehm, all the way to the multidisciplinary artist, Madeleine Aguilar, and nearly everything in between.

From 2016 to the present, Compound Yellow curated over 100 exhibitions, events, and happenings—ranging from art workshops, to performance art, to visual exhibitions, to music shows, including open mics.

The new Compound Yellow avoids the, as I quote, “putting in all of the eggs in one basket type of DIY venue mentality: The place has several areas that are spread out within something like a  5,000 to 6,000 square foot area of property. All of the buildings have yellow paint on them. And along the east end hugging the sidewalk and Lake Street is called the Prairie Restoration Learning Garden.

On the east side is a house space, which is generally not open to the public, which houses a kitchen where chefs prepare food to give to guests and patrons in their outdoor events. (I assume that this house space is used for artists who have temporary residences in the space, but not only that, it is where Laura also lives too!)  Just in front of the house space is a sort of a small chicken farm, facing the edge of Lake Street. Three chickens, named Huevos (which means “eggs”), Peeps, and Spike, live in that coop. Sadly, I found out that Huevos is the “baddest” of this chicken bunch—it did too many attempted escapes from the coop and Laura and her team had to intervene and bring it back to the gated coop.

To the east of the house space is a small space for doing storage, and just behind that is a public bathroom. To the east of that small storage space are the main attraction to the Compound….another bigger building which is used for art/visual displays on the 1^st floor, and finally, within the same building--the 2^nd floor, which is technically used as a multipurpose space. It was used for not just additional art exhibitions, but also flea markets, presentations, lectures, and above all, a wide variety of music events.  I like it even more than the other parts of the Compound Yellow.

A few of the featured series at Compound include “Sideyard Sounds”, which features music outdoors of nearly every genre during the warmer months in the yard space, and “Winter Sounds”, which has additional music events,  usually taking place in the colder months in the Studio. However, during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, Laura had to suspend all indoor activities and tell patrons to mask up even on outside events, and when the pandemic peaked around 2021-2022, Laura did allow indoor events but required people to wear masks. The pandemic emergency now is over, so all indoor events inside the Compound are mask-optional now.

Furthermore, the multipurpose space on the 2^nd floor is called the “studio”, and the 1st-floor space under it is called the “Y-Gallery”. The building in front of the public washroom was called the “X-Gallery.”

 One of my recent outings to Compound Yellow was an electronic music show that focused on spontaneity and creative improvisation, called “Winter Sounds.” It happened on Saturday, February 24, 2024, and it was nearly evening-length as it started around 7pm. It was a big bill, which included one of my fan favorites, Carol Genetti, an experimental vocal sound artist who plays around with gadgets. She  teamed up with Peter Maunu, on guitar and effects. But the good news is that I was well-loved by the audience because several of my important supporter-friends of my creations were there---Kristin Abhalter Smith (who co-runs the art space in Rogers Park, Roman Susan), along with her new friend, Eliza Fernand (to whom Kristin curated in Eliza’s art project at Roman), in her blue skull cap and blue sweater, and Sara Zalek wearing roughly a white toga outfit. Sara and I were performance art dancers who clicked a lot so much with our own shamanic energies and the audience appreciated our dancing as some of the electronic music performers played.

Along with help from Kristin who also liked my dancing (since she also loves disco music so much), this was almost like a euphoria that I really liked.

But near the end of the show, I did get a chance to dance with not only Laura but also Carol Genetti, for a short while. When it was all over---I felt so euphoric all the way to the CTA train station as I got home on a pretty blustery night. But it was a good experience. And Laura wants me to do my own show later on at Compound in the future---now that is quite happy for me!

And whenever I want to go back to Compound Yellow to see another event, Laura will welcome me again with big open arms! And some of a few regulars who also love Compound and me will likely be there, even if it is not all the time.

REFERENCES

“Chicago’s Hidden Gems: Compound Yellow Provide Space for Artists, Chickens”.  CBS Chicago (Chicago). News video short-documentary, Youtube. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIHUfQQk77Y> November 2023.

“Compound Yellow”. Official Website.  <https://www.compoundyellow.com/past-events.> Accessed March 6, 2024. 

Want To Count Cards in Blackjack But Avoid The Extremely Disappointing Casino Backoff? It is possible to avoid this!!!

Suppose you are a avid blackjack player who took 3 months to master how to beat the game by learning any number of card-counting systems and are confident to try to beat the "house" game in casino blackjack.

Then you do a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for your bankroll--which is $50,000, raised by your friends, and you go take a flight to the Oxford Casino in the state of Maine, and book an adjacent hotel away from the casino just in case you are backed-off. Then you go to the casino in-person to see if your "$50,000" will go up to $100,000, or $150,000, or more, after you finish the last shoe at the blackjack tables. 

You go to the security area, and you flash your ID to security, and security tells you, "Do you have a club card?" You say "no", because you try to be smart, because if they find you with a club card, and you are caught counting, you will be permanently run out of the casino. No doubt.

You also dress more casually - no dressy slacks, no flashy tie, no expensive suit jacket or even sunglasses, to avoid people unfairly passing you off as an advantage player. 

Then you find a blackjack table that is open, you consent to play to the dealer, the dealer says yes, and you start to play with the $50,000 in chips. 

On the first open shoes, you realize that the running count is about +3, so that favors the house, so you do not bet high - just $10 a round, and flat-bet on that. You get $50,500, after winning $50 on bets on the first 5 shoes. Good.

 In the next shoe-rounds, the count gets hot with a running count of -1 so you decide to bet suddenly high - $500 a round. And you play 5 shoes, with one bad-hand give to the dealer, knowing if you play all good hands, the pit boss will try to back you off. The result was still good. You end up with $52,500, so that means you got an extra $2,500 in your bankroll. 

Then, the dealer gives a signal to security, and then, things get not just bad - but worse. As you are about to start playing the next shoe and raise your bet to $1,000 a round, security taps you on the shoulder, he tells you to flash your ID again, and you say "no." 

Then security tells you, "You have to go home! You are no longer welcome in this casino!" 

As security calls for extra security personnel to come and throw you out of the place, you protest by saying "I already flashed ID to the desk, so it is not right for you to harass me for ID again---"

Security doesn't buy your protest story and then they interlock your arms and start escorting you to the door. "Refusing to flash ID is a tip-off that you are a card counter, and we have zero-tolerance for any card counters here! Therefore, you are considered a trespasser! If you come back to the place again....."

I protest again--"I want to cash out before I leave..."

Security then says "You are not cashing out, man, YOU NEED TO GO HOME AND NOT COME BACK HERE!" 

Finally, security then throws you out of the front entrance, and you are thrown onto the ground, and then they say to you "Don't come back here! Not ever! You come back here again, YOU WILL GO TO JAIL!"

Then security goes back to the casino and you are bursting into tears. 

Then, you see a taxi and you flag it down, and the taxi driver accepts your hail, you go in, and then you tell him to take you to that remote hotel. 

As the taxi drives you back to the casino, the taxi driver says, "I think from the way you are treated I think you were kicked out of the casino for counting cards.."

"Not just counting cards, but also failing to flash the ID for a second time", I told the driver. 

"Well, I have heard horror stories of card counters tased or even pepper sprayed when they are told to leave and are banned, and they resist orders to leave the premises", the taxi driver continued. "Their casino backoffs at Oxford are the worst--extremely insane. At times you will be treated like a sex offender if you are caught counting."

Then you go back to the hotel (as you say goodbye to the taxi driver who drops you off there), and you know a friend who lives near the Oxford casino but plays other games without doing blackjack. You call him, and tell him that you are banned from the casino, and tell him to cash out the chips that you were not allowed to when you was permanently ousted. 3 hours later, you get the call, and you get the cash back of $50,000, and decide to check out of the hotel, and take a plane out of the state of Maine to "back home." 

Ever since I learned that counting cards in a casino will get you on the hook until they do not want you anymore there, I realized that even though I never played casino blackjack, I realized tough lessons if you want to stay at the casino--you must never tip off the staff that you are trying to create an unfair edge to the game. Especially in blackjack. The only way to avoid backoffs when card counting in blackjack is to avoid doing anything that makes you act like one, if you even think of doing it. 

So here are my tips if you want to even think of doing counting but trying to avoid the disappointing "not book your action anymore" decry--which is keenly the "backoff" itself: 

1. The best way to avoid trouble is to mask your actions as a counter--use your own diversions. The best ones include....

a. Talk to the other players, but be careful not to mention anything blackjack-ese -they may not like the way you play, and you might be tipped off that you are a counter. 

b. Look at the other sights away from the blackjack tables. However, don't try to look at the security cameras if at all possible--the "eye in the sky" might catch you. 

c. Don't focus on only one blackjack table and play shoe-round after shoe-round "until the cows come home" on just one table. Even if you only do basic strategy and not count, the length of time you stay at the table might tip off possibly that you are a counter, and you might be told to stop playing blackjack as you get backed off.  This is called "diverting oneself from one table to another", and this is important. So stay for a few shoe-rounds on one table, and then finish there and move to another blackjack table, stay there only a short time, and move to still another blackjack table, and so on.  

2. Try to avoid looking at other people's hands if at all possible. Focus on your own hands the dealer gives you, and that is the hands that are in total control by you, although the odds can be stacked against you. Use what you know from basic strategy to try to gain an advantage, but try to do this without keeping a running count. 

3. Try to flat-bet at all tables, depending on your bankroll. If the bet is $400 per round, keep it there for the next games. If the bet is $35 per round, do not let it go up, especially until the whole shoe is done. (One man at Foxwoods casino who was a card counter raised his bet suddenly, violating the bet table limit, and was permanently kicked out of the casino, even though he was able to cash out.) Think of flat-betting like keeping your glucose levels normal as a diabetic. Betting suddenly very high or very low will always raise a suspicion of card counting.

4. Learn how to play non-blackjack games, such as slots, before you try to play blackjack at the casinos. Don't just put all of your eggs in one basket by only playing blackjack at the tables. As mentioned before, playing blackjack too long at one table will give you likely a "soft backoff" that will mean you cannot play any more blackjack but you can play other games, such as Texas Hold 'Em, craps, slots, roulette, and similar games. If you don't know how to play the other games after you are told "you cannot play blackjack here", run yourself out of the casino--and cash out if you still have chips. 

5. If told to flash your ID for a second time after flashing it to security once, you need to comply. Especially at Oxford casino, if you are caught refusing to flash the ID again, you will be not only eighty-sixed---but you will not be welcome back.  

6. Try to avoid the "double down" technique in your chips in the middle of the blackjack hand. This could also tip off the dealer that you are trying to possibly raise your bet, which in turn, could tip you off as a card counter also. 

7. Dress casually and not formally when going to the casino. Of course, you need to have shirts on and shoes on, and be sure that even your casual jeans are not tattered, just in case they have a strict dress code. Dressing formally will raise more suspicion on you sometimes, even if you never even go to the blackjack tables--but if you hit the tables, even if you never count cards, you might be caught anyway. 

Sex Offender Registrants Part 1 – The New Class of Extremely-Hated People In American Society

 They are known in the United States as the most-hated people in the country. They are perceived as something like being labeled as something similar to serial killers, or heinous murderers.

Some of these people are classified as so extremely contemptible that they are sometimes on a hit list for a gang beating or even an assassination.  

Yep – you are right – if you say these so-unwanted people are registered sex offenders – especially those registrants who will be facing the most severe collateral consequences after they serve time in prison for sex crimes ranging from simple indecent exposure all the way to the most heinous—including--of course, child pornography and child rape.

In 2011, reporter Lisa Ling, who did a documentary called “State of Sex Offenders”, mentioned that there were over 700,000 sex offender registrants in the United States. But with much tougher restrictions going on in 2022 or so, thanks to the Me Too movement—the movement that snagged people like Jared Fogle, Jerry Harris, and Austin Jones (celebrities who plead guilty of or prosecuted on charges of child pornography), who will definitely join the bunch of 700,000-plus registrants in at least several years---I am guessing right now that the total of sex offenders in the United States might reach to approximately 1,000,000 people or a bit more. Only a guess.

I do know that Jeffery Epstein almost got on such a hit list while he was in prison as a sex offender, and his only exit out of being hit by those who hate him was for him to kill himself in jail—and he did—kill himself! Jared Fogle was also attacked by a prisoner while he was serving incarceration time for crimes related to online child solicitation/child pornography, as well.

Epstein killed himself because I had a hunch that he would face extreme restrictions as a sex offender registrant if he were to be out of prison and still alive.

These newly-turned group of most-loathed people exists a lot, especially in Texas, and most importantly, in Florida; these are people I need to stay away from. If I even dare to try to enter their enclaves, one of them – or a group of them – could jump on me, or beat me down and kick me on the ground, then, they restrain me, beat me some more, and even worse – grope or rape me – and leave me lying alone in a pulp half-dead or even dead. And I feel so, so violated and so hurt that I feel like I do not want to live any more.

Yes, very keenly, these people need to be afraid. I am actually living in the south side of Chicago, and after looking up a personal search engine called BeenVerified, I realized that my heart raced quite high when I found out that there was a registered sex offender living about 4 or 5 blocks where I am staying!!!

I will not mention the exact name of the registrant who lives by me, because if I do, not only he will mark me for death – but I could be marked for death by simply helping him.  Moreover, thanks to those anti-pedophilia laws such as Megan’s Law, and the biggest – the Sex Offender Registry Notification Act (or SORNA), because this group of people are basically treated like lepers—perpetually and relentlessly disowned, rejected, and very highly unneeded.

Yes, restraints, rules, restrictions, and stipulations are needed to keep these people from re-offending, but in my opinion, the current sex offender registry mandates, laws, and crackdowns are sometimes way too repressive—sometimes so repressive that it causes even would-be-compliant sex offenders to inadvertently run afoul of the strict rules, which can mean a revocation of their probations or parole, causing them to end up re-slammed back into prison.  

For those sex offender registrants who got out of the toughest prisons to serve their mandated registration requirements for 10 years to up to a lifetime, such as the Menard Correctional Center in Illinois, if they go back to prison for violating the registry requirements, I am guessing that they would probably be “super-maxxed” even if they have no violent criminal history. I have a hunch that there is a reason for such severe incarceration treatment for them – because whether these people are “chomos” (child molesters, which is a slang word used in prison) or not—whenever you are a sex offender registrant, you are treated as a “chomo” by association or assumption, whether you are a child molester or not, and whether if you are prison or not – when you are “registrant red-flagged”, you face a lot worse.

Lisa Ling was right about this – saying that these people “are treated like animals.”

So suppose you are in their shoes---you end up as a sex offender registrant. What can happen to you?

As mentioned, they are the most vile of people—so extremely vile that they are treated like feces or urine—construed as extremely unaesthetic and unworthy of even being rehabilitated. That is why if you are that registrant, be prepared to be kicked out of even your own apartment or home. They are now the new group of homeless people now, along with those who failed to pay their mortgage or rent and are evicted or foreclosed from their properties. Most landlords and house owners (including realtors and family members) simply do not want sex offender registrants being there, so these people are forced to live on the streets, in swamps, under bridges—or even into the desolate woods making their home while facing the tough challenges of no running water, electricity, heat, air conditioning or sewer service. They also face their toughest challenge of following the strict “forbidden zone” requirements (“child safety zones” in particular; zones where you can find large congregations of kids), where they cannot stay, or move into, or assemble. Even worse, the Meghan Book law doubles some of the distance requirements of these no-go zones (so for example, a 1,000-foot safety zone between a registrant and a K-8 school or a beach can be instead 2,000 feet!!!).

It is even worse if you had already lived in a parent’s house with children and served prison time already on a registrable sex crime and you get out. You realize a new restriction especially if the children did not reach statutory age at your former house – it is against the law to live at that house, and you face a curfew from usually 10pm to daybreak (usually at 6am), and curfew requirements depend on the state and the specific terms of probation or parole. (That is, if you stay at that house during curfew time, that’s a violation of the sex offender registrant rules, and you get re-slammed into jail.) If that house is within a certain amount of feet of a child safety zone, you have to live somewhere else. Again, if the children had turned into adults in what was your parents’ home after you got out of prison, there is a slight chance you will be allowed to live at that house,  but because sex offender registrants are just so, so profoundly unwanted, just simply don’t count on even staying there even if not bound by the laws. Why? Your neighbors – and your existing parents - may not ever want you in that house nevertheless because they will likely find out that you are publicized as a sex offender. And then—game over for you! And you have to live somewhere else!

You go on the Internet, and you see all of your Facebook friends, and your followers on Twitter and Instagram—suddenly disappear.  Well, sorry—your  friends and contacts on social media found out that you are a registrant and, in very fast time, suddenly disowned you! After you log out of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, you try to log in later into these platforms, and you find out that YOU ARE BANNED ON ALL THREE PLATFORMS—FOREVER!!! Even worse, the 3 social media companies keep quiet on why you were banned—but you have a hunch that you were banned because too many of your friends reported to these companies that you are a sex offender registrant.

Then, finding out that you cannot use Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram any more, you try to do a mass email to your friends and family that “cancel-cultured” you because you are a registrant red-flag, trying to promote a new email list of contacts from scratch. Then, after you send a BCC (blind carbon copy) of 20 recipients, you open up Gmail and you realize that you got a message from the ESP (email service provider) – which is Google Mail – that your email IP address was blacklisted because you were trying to contravene the social media bans through email, in a guise that you were probably trying to cyberstalk them. This means no more Gmail indefinitely.

Then, you try to set up a different email service provider to get the contacts back—for instance, Yahoo! email, and then, unfortunately, you have no hope—you got another message that ymail (or Yahoo! mail) also blacklisted your IP address. So that means you cannot use your Yahoo! email anymore.

Then, you try to do email other companies, and then they also blacklist you. So that means you give up on trying to do email anymore, and now realize that you cannot do either email or social media at all. All that is left for you is you are going to have to be alone and deal with it indefinitely. This will hurt your family and your relationships—intimate and non-intimate.

Now suppose you stay home alone or on the first day of being a registrant. Then, after you register by law to the police and report your whereabouts as required, you are watching TV in your home, and then you see a car stopping at your house, and a gangbanger comes out and throws a large stone at your front window, breaking it as the stone lands in the carpet of your living room, and then the car speeds off. Then, as you pick up the thrown stone, the stone says, “YOU WILL END UP IN THE GRAVE, YOU DAMN SEX OFFENDER!” You drop the stone and you try to call 911 to report to the police about the vandalism, and as you try to call, you witness the front door crash and you see a tall man with a .38 gun coming at you, and you put your hands up. He then says to you, “Are you a sex offender? DON’T LIE TO ME OR YOU’RE DEAD!” You respond with a quiet, yet nervous “yes, yes.” Then the man says, “Lucky you told the truth, you are a sex offender”, and then he pistol-whips you on the temple, causing you to be down on the ground, and then he pepper-gasses you, and says, “I’m watching you because we hate such perps around! I suggest you stay home for the rest of your life, or I’ll kill you!” He then leaves, but not until you recover from 30 minutes of being gassed, feeling throat constriction and severe eye burning.

That’s enough of what can happen to you if you end up as a sex offender registrant and end up on “the list”. Now in the next article, I will give you some ways and tips on how you can avoid being on that dreaded list.

 

9/11 Attacks – The Attacks That Affected My Life Well Away From New York

      I keenly call this event the worst terrorist attack ever in American history. Even worse than the famous Unibomber mail bomb attacks, and even worse than the bombing of the parking garage of the World Trade Center that happened in 1993, and still even worse than the  Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995.

       I can remember all of the news footage on TV from different channels from ABC, NBC, and CBS, honing in on the first tower that was hit on 9-11 – which was the North Tower, and saw big plumes of smoke  - more smoke than fire, but I can see some fires from the building itself.

       Then, I was shocked – as well as millions of Americans – when, about 10 minutes after the north tower of the World Trade Center was hit, was that I saw another plane – and as I saw that shape of the plane, I knew it was not a prop, because I did not see any propellers on that plane…..it had wide wings, and as soon as I saw those wings, I can see within those three seconds I saw that plane—from the time I saw the plane zooming into the screen to the time the plane hit the South Tower of the WTC---that it was a real jet. A REAL JET! And when I saw the massive explosions from that South Tower – I knew that it was not an accidental plane crash at all – it was a concerted attack on not just the Trade Center – not just Manhattan – not just all of New York – but ALL OF AMERICA!!!

        I can remember that I saw guerilla video footage of rare scenes in the midst of the two purposeful airline strikes on the towers.  For example, I saw millions of bits of paper sharpnel, fragments, and shards – fly like tickertape confetti in a massive parade as it cut through the normally innocent morning blue sky, as if Times Square was celebrating New Year’s Eve, but it was not on New Year’s Eve. The paper bits were from the fires ripping up countless pieces of paper from the towers and seem to fly around in the air in a slow freefall. It looked like a celebration – but it was just simply shear horror. And it was not funny at all.

        And more rare video footage just minutes after the towers struck showed even more horror.  I saw firebrands from the pieces of the towers that were superheated by the already-detonated jet fuel into nothing—and even worse---I saw a few or several real people—having no choice but to go on the edge of the deadly heights in the fires to gasp for air outside, and later on, as the heat and fires both got worse, had no choice but to jump about 1,000 feet or so to their deaths, and I knew these helpless people died, because they never had any emergency parachutes to save them.

      I also saw more rare footage of first responders—EMTs, police, and firefighters of New York, going into those crippled towers to try to save the lives of those who got affected by the two suicide plane hits at the Trade Center towers. Most of them who went inside the affected towers, or came close to them…did not know in the next 20-30 minutes that the extreme heat eating away at the trusses, I-beams, and supports of the top floors of the towers already burning, would cause most of them to end up causing them to either go to their graves or end up with massive amounts of dust and soot trying to get away from the doomed towers.

      Then, I got word from the FAA that LaGuardia and Newark international airports got a taste of what Operation SCATANA will do to air space affected by the terrorist attacks – I found out that those two airports had to stop landing and take-off operations immediately, shutting down both airports for good. (I also had a hunch that JFK International Airport also had to lock down operations too.) Eventually, orders came to eventually shut down air space operations at Cleveland and Boston at its airports, so this also affected Logan International Airport in Boston, where American Airlines flight 11 took off and slammed into one of the towers in a suicide attack. Then, I found out that Operation Archangel was launched in Manhattan, causing a massive metro-evacuation of personnel at such governmental facilites as New York’s City Hall and the United Nations, fearing that such buildings could be future targets of suicide attacks from planes like that of American 11 and United Airlines 175.

     At the 9:27 am point, I saw that the smoke plume went up and then horizontally for as long as 2 miles…all the way to the Hudson River. That is the type of enormity that I saw with the attacks on the towers that were already done by brazen terrorists who made us paid the price for what we did to them, although I did not know why in the first minutes of the attacks.

     Then, later on, after realizing that the towers and the Pentagon were attacked, I and other Americans witnessed our former president, George Bush, came to the podium at a Florida School, at about 9:30 a.m. He said to us that America is now saddened and shocked by the brazen concerted attacks on the World Trade Center. “Terrorism against our nation will not stand…and now will you join me in a moment of silence….May God their victims, their families, and America…Thank you very much.”

      Then, about 15 minutes into the attacks, I got new breaking news that another plane – American 77 – struck one part of America’s military headquarters in Washington D.C. – known mainly as The Pentagon. Now I realized – after I heard this happen – that this is a definite attack on America – not just on Manhattan, not just on New York – it was an attack on us Americans!!  When I saw that gaping hole and big plumes of black smoke from the Pentagon, I am trying to say to myself, “Now which other American building or buildings could become the next target? Could it be our Sears Tower in Chicago? Or the Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World in Florida? Or maybe even part of the buildings covering the Bourbon St. strip in New Orleans that was famous during the Mardi Gras celebrations?” The FAA did not yet close down our entire American air space yet at that point (they only had an order for no more takeoffs/departures for just the New York, Boston, and Cleveland airports), so until I heard that they would completely close down that air space and force all civilian aircraft not affected by the hijackings to land at the nearest airport, I was scared that the Sears Tower, or Hancock Building, or maybe even the Chicago Board of Exchange or CNA Plaza building – could all be primary targets. So I decided not to go to downtown for 1 or 2 hours…but I was holding my breath, because I was afraid that more planes could crash into other major buildings all over other U.S. cities. I was so scared at that point—especially at the 9:15 am to 9:55 am mark where tensions due to the attacks were at its very highest!!! I loved Chicago, but I was still too young to die at the hands of brazen suicide terrorists hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings!!!

      Then, I got word from the FAA that about a few minutes after the Pentagon was hit by American Airlines 77, a nation-wide emergency ground stop was now in effect—every civilian plane—whether or not it was hijacked, was now forced to land at the nearest airport—regardless of the destination they were intending to go to. And with that order, in addition to the no-more-departures order already in place, I knew that it was absolutely all over for civilian planes in American air space, and I breathed just merely a very slight sigh of relief—I took two or three breaths now realizing that I will never see any civilian aircraft flying in our Chicago skies for an indefinite period, but I was afraid that there will be more military jets flying over our city to enforce the temporary no-fly-zone over our country, just in case any civilian plane who refuses to land violated that air space. But I was now happy that I would not see any civilian jet try to crash into any more buildings for as long as that air space closing order stayed in place. And I am glad that the air space is now locked down everywhere in the country – so now, I can go downtown whenever I wish and not have to worry about jets flying into buildings for at least the next week or so……

 

The Chicago Sinfonietta’s 2020 Annual Martin Luther King Concert – A Musical Blend of The Old and The New in an Event Designed to Bring All Of The People Together to Unity In The Fight Against Racism, Bigotry and Segregation

It has been roughly over 50 years – particularly, 52 years since the time Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a victim of a fatal hit on his life while protesting and leading a strike with sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968, by alleged mastermind, James Earl Ray.

King was known in the tapestry of American history for trying to appease the civil upheavals, turmoils, riots, and overall anarchy as he fought for civil rights and the eventual end of the Jim Crow segregation in the South that actually sparked with Rosa Parks’ refusal to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama in her so-famous civil disobedience display, getting her arrested in the process and helped King launch a massive city-wide Montgomery Bus Boycott. King used his Christian leadership and Gandhi’s points and tenets of using nonviolence to stop this so-called Goliath in American sociology called segregation (where King, for instance, went into Chicago to speak out against the discriminatory technique of red-lining in the slums of that city to discourage Blacks from getting rental housing), and as a result of that, we all African-Americans now enjoy the freedoms that were once limited. There are no more “colored” bathrooms or “colored” hotels now. And the biggest achievement was that we had our first African-American President of the United States, Barack Obama, in 2008.

Still, today, it is a bit sad that we have seen backlashes to these achievements even in recent years, upending King’s need for us to be nonviolent, years after he was gunned down in the aforementioned assassination. We had saw that in the senseless police shootings and vigilante killings that made such innocent Black people as Trayvon Williams die in the hands of a White vigilante with that “stand your ground” excuse unneeded, or Michael Brown end up fatally shot by a White police officer and caused explosive violence of rioting and pillaging in Ferguson, MA in 2014 that created re-livings of the nationwide race riots that happened after the Voting Rights Act happened in 1964, or Eric Garner ending up being choked to death by another White officer in New York, with his last words being “Can’t Breathe”, which caused me to feel his death right in his heart, because you need air in order to survive. Even though I was glad not to face the Goliath of racially-motivated police violence against me ever in my life, the risk that I could end up like Williams, or Brown, or Garner in the future, even though I am now 49 years young, motivated me to attend the Martin Luther King Concert at the Symphony Center in Chicago IL.

A large crowd braved the rather bitter cold to go through the music building's gates to see what they wanted to see inside the iconic auditorium of red seats and ornate walls and the famous stage where the Chicago Sinfonietta would be front-and-center for this concert. Mei-Ann Chen was at the helm this year in 2020 as the main music director of the Sinfonietta.  I saw this Chinese-American conductor before in past MLK concerts with this orchestra (probably a few times)  – and Mei-Ann was as inspirational and fiery as before – probably a little bit more than that this year, because of two probable reasons – the ongoing Shen Yun spectacles in Chicago (To me, she is a little bit like a “Shen Yun” in his conducting style – wide-out, greatly flowing, and really highly intricate in her baton work, just like a Shen Yun Chinese dancer would do), and the fact that this is the start of Chinese New Year – the Year of the Rat. I will never know if she is in the zodiac of the rat; nevertheless, these two happenings meant good luck for this conductor throughout the event – and the audience loved it.

I already mentioned some of the innocent Blacks who were killed, and that was the basis for composer Joel Thompson to pay homage to a list of 6 African-Americans who were unjustly killed in the hands of police or vigilantes due to their race, in the orchestral-choral version of Seven Last Words of the Unarmed, that marked the first part of the concert.  The premiere performance gave me a quick mindset that this was inspired by “The Seven Last Words of Christ”, an oratorio composed by Theodore DuBois, which featured an introduction and 7 movements for each “last word”. Of course, the Seven Last Words is depicted in the Holy Bible’s Four Gospels that cover the account of Jesus’s crucifixion as he was hung in Golgotha for hours to die a slow, but very painful death, dying with this final of the 7 words – “within my hands, I commend my Spirit.” So with this, as I saw the composer on stage speaking about this composition, he mentions some of the Blacks who were killed and said that this Seven Last Words of the Unarmed was something like an inspirational “meditation” on the oppression, racism, and injustice related to the six Blacks who were killed unjustly. The music itself, with help of guest Black conductor Kendrick Armstrong and the Adrian Dunn Singers, is described as something as post-classical, with a mixture of a blend of composers that I heard before: George Walker, Bela Bartok, Edgard Varese, and even bits of Igor Stravinsky (who was known for the violent “Rite of Spring” ballet). So with the final meditation – the 7^th part involving the paying homage to Eric Garner (already mentioned), the “can’t breathe” lyrics were striking, as I hear an orchestral bass drum representing two musical characteristic leading motives – the first one, with occasional rhythmic blows, represented Garner’s last heartbeats as he was choked and crushed by senseless NYPD officers to his death; the second one, even louder than the first, represented the officer’s deadly chokehold on Garner.

But before Joel’s work, two mainstay songs opened the concert. The first one was Up To The Mountain, a folk song that was originally by Patty J. Griffin. With the help of the assistant conductor of the Sinfonietta, Jonathan Rush, and singer Kimberli Joye, the arrangement of the song by Michelle Issac, was in a style reminiscent of the laid-back 12/8-meter soul ballads commonly seen from some of the songs by Ray Charles or Sam Cooke (known for his rendition of “A Change Is Gonna Come”). It was first released in the year 2006 and the height of the song was when the Boston Children’s Chorus took up the song and did their arrangement in 2013. Following that number, came another number – a famous spiritual, Deep River, in an arrangement by Carrie Lane Giselle, in the key of Eb major. The song first came out in 1876 and made more famous in 1916, when Harry T. Burleigh made probably the first music publication arrangement of the piece for piano and voice. However, in that Deep River number by the Sinfonietta - There were no voices or chorus in that number – it was for strings only, which was good enough. There were some slight alterations in the arrangement musically, but the rest of that number was as straightforward as you hear it so many times for years.

To close out the first half of the concert, conductor Armstrong did a version of Glory from the 2014 soundtrack of the movie, Selma. This movie re-enacted one of the major civil rights events in Selma, Alabama, where over 500-plus Black marchers, led by now-congressman Joe Lewis, went across the Rolund Pettis Bridge in their fight against segregation, planning to go through the bridge en route to  Montgomery, Alabama, home of the aforementioned bus boycott and the Rosa Parks incident. Their first march attempt was ruined by a big wall White officers at the other end of the bridge who first told them to turn back, but as the marchers decided not to disperse and not fight back in the name of nonviolence, they were hounded upon and jumped upon by officers with tear gas, billy clubs, and even bullwhips, leaving scores of marchers injured and a few killed. This led to the 2^nd attempt of the march where the troops did retreat but the marchers retreated in turn in confusion, and then finally, with the help of Martin Luther King and Lyndon Baines Johnson, most of the marchers on the 3^rd attempt did go past the end of that bridge without incident, all the way to Montgomery, Alabama, the endpoint of the march, and MLK did his rallying speech there afterward.

So for this Glory, the music was by John Legend, with the added rap of Common, and regrettably, probably because of copyright issues or other music contractual issues (only speculating), the so-called rap that I was supposed to hear in the middle of the song – and all of you – did not happen. I did not hear the “hip-hop” drums or the hip-hop rap, which was a bit disappointing, because I was expecting it because I heard that original song with the choral singers and the rap by Common a few years prior, in 2014, as soon as the movie was released. So there was no guest rapper doing the song with Sinfonietta, which disappointed me, as well as the audience members. The only solo voice that did come in the song was Kymberli Joye, an African-American singer who was a great contestant in “The Voice”, who did the lead-in words that looped and looped, saying in the lyrics “The war is not over…victory is won… we will fight to the finish, when all is said and done.” The Adrian Dunn Singers helped with the choral lines which worked well with Kymberli’s solo works and improvs, and every time I heard them sing out “Glory” en masse as they iterated, I can remember that John Legend used a part of James Weldon Johnson’s Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing hymn, the African-American National Anthem that ends on the words “Let us march on, till victory is won”. Moreover, Legend’s “the war is not over” is correct, because of some of the racial oppressions that Martin Luther King Jr. supposed to stop that plighted Blacks for over 500 years are still continuing, even though old Jim Crow seemed to have ended.

After intermission, I saw that the orchestra had the biggest forces since I had witnessed when I saw a past Sinfonietta concert involving the Tschaikovsky’s 1812 Overture in a past MLK Concert. But they weren’t doing Tschaikovsky. They were doing a part of Gustav Mahler’s biggest magnum opus orchestral work in his musical career, as soprano Summer Hassan, and mezzo-soprano Leah Dexter, along with the North Central College Concert Choir, and the much larger personnel number of Sinfonietta under conductor Chen (including a larger brass section and larger battery personnel) performed the iconic last movement of his Auferstehungssymphonie (or “Resurrection Symphony” in German)—Mahler’s Symphony no. 2.  I can remember seeing a past Sinfonietta concert where they performed the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven with the famous chorus-finale. Mahler’s “Resurrection” finale movement – as I found out – would be much different than Beethoven’s in musicality, expression, and style. The opening notes, punctuated by a bass drum explosion and cymbal crashes, reminded me of chaos and doom, and then as the movement progresses, after the mood of chaos goes into the inner spirit. I hear a C major key center with new motives that I recognize – focusing on feelings of a  passage of redemption – probably one of the most important parts of the symphony that I experienced years ago through hearing it in television commercials and a few television documentaries. Then as the piece continues, I am thrown into forced guessing of the accelerandos, slowdowns, and wide use of pitches and angular jumps and scalar motives – guessing I am recalling bits of Richard Strauss’s “Ein Heldenleben” (Hero’s life, one of his tone poems) and Don Juan (another of Strauss’s tone poems). It sounded like a tone poem that is worthy of what Richard Wagner would do in his mature operas. Then, as the solos started their “Aufersteh’n” (or “rise up”), I was taken into a whirlwind journey of a conflict between good and bad, and as the chorus picked up later on as the piece wreaked out its last of Mahler’s orchestral unpredictabilities into the rousing, majestic Eb major section, the chorus and solos announce a sort of what I call in German a “Gesamtverklaerung”, or a total transformation, that one would feel after the human life departs. And even if the audience never even understood a word of German in the text by Freidrich Gottlieb Klopstock (likely he was something like a secondary Heinrich Schiller) because there were no supertitles to translate above the orchestra and chorus and singers, I was on my own to bask into Mahler’s unique post-Romantic music. As the Eb chord in the tutti orchestra that concluded the movement chimed in something like the ending to Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky, it seemed to me that my transformation was complete. Our transformation to help us deal with the Black oppressions that you thought were gone in the past – but still, regrettably, happen to people like me, today. Mahler wasn’t exactly like Beethoven, but since I had played some Mahler works as a piano accompanist, I realized I had to respect this modern romantic orchestrator – and he was with that part of that symphony. The crowd liked it with big applause. And after some doubt, I had to stand up and applaud to those musical forces who conquered a part of the Goliath called the Resurrection Symphony finale.

And you think the concert was over after we got our musical bite of a big Mahler orchestral work? – no – not yet. Conductor Mei-Ann decided to mark, like in past MLK Sinfonietta concerts, a post-concert tradition that was set by Paul Freedman, who was the first conductor of the Chicago Sinfonietta. He invited the audience to first do a “passing of the peace in place” like a lot of United Methodist Churches do in their services, and then, the big mainstay musical finale that was a tradition – using the most traditional of songs that was used a lot during the King era – “We Shall Overcome”.  She asked the audience to hold hands (something like in the style of the “Hands Across America” events), and as the “We Shall Overcome” song blared with the help of the Sinfonietta Orchestra and the guest singers and the two guest choruses, I saw that there were a sea of hands and arms, that swayed left and right like you see boats do on bodies of water.

So when it was all over, in review, we got what we wanted in honoring King with a symphonic concert. There was a mixture of the old and the new; there was a little bit of a “pops orchestra” thing with the Up To The Mountain, and the mighty symphonic forces of a bit of Mahler’s “Resurrection Symphony”. I walked out of Symphony Hall proud, as well as a 2,000-plus audience, and I think if Paul Freedman, the architect of the Sinfonietta – were to be here tonight for this occasion – he would have loved every minute of that concert as well.  

Run, Hide, Fight (TM) - The Mainstay Procedure to Deal With An Active Shooter Situation

I learned that active shootings usually come to an end around 15 minutes or a bit more, and thanks to what happened recently in Texas, we need to know what to do next time another tragic event like an active shooter happens, so let's look at the Run, Hide, Fight (TM) plan devised by the City of Houston, which now is likely the standard operating procedure for a new type of threat that had been happening in this country for at least 20 years.

Run - basically you need to get as far away from the shooter as much as you can, because the closer you are shot by the shooter, the higher chance there will be a severe gunshot wound injury - or a killing wound. Then there is cover and concealment - cover is best because it totally blocks bullets, but use concealment if you cannot find anything for cover. If concealment is the only option, be prepared to fight back if you have to do it to save your life - especially if the shooter is at close range and within arm's reach!

Hide - basically, this means not only conceal yourself, but BE ABSOLUTELY QUIET! Even the slightest noise can give your shooter your location and you might end up shot or DEAD afterwards. That means turn off anything that can make noise, and that includes your cell phone - set it to silent. If it vibrates - the shooter might hear it and you will regret it probably to as much as your grave. Basically, "hide" means lock down yourself as much as you can - lock doors and windows, close curtains and blinds, turn off lights, and even though your locked stuff can be used as cover or concealment, there is a chance that the shooter might open up the window or door, so use a backup space as your extra conceal or cover - like an utility closet, and if it has locks, use it. Basically if you cannot be seen or occupied, the shooter will move on and not kill or shoot you.

Fight - basically, because there is an immediate threat because guns can kill us instantly, we have a legal right to fight back (think self-defense) against the shooter with anything that you can use to survive an attack if you cannot run or hide. Improvised objects or dual-use items are good--especially if it is rigid or hard, like 2 X 4 wood or chairs. Even inflated balloons can be used as improvised objects if the shooter is within close range - you pop it to distract the shooter and then you finish the shooter off with hand-to-hand combat. Fire extinguishers can be used to spray the attacker or hit the attacker down. And once you are in the fight, do not stop until you are sure the shooter is down, because if the shooter is able to get up after you fight and leave, it might be seconds before the shooter can fire the weapon again to hurt or kill again. Best of course is to wrestle the gun away from the attacker after hurting that attacker, being careful not to let the gun go off and kill innocent bystanders, and kick it far away so that the shooter does not have access to the weapon. Once the shooter is down, run away, but KEEP YOUR HANDS UP, because at that point, the police will likely storm in, fully armed in most cases.

A Brief Vocabulary Study Guide for the ACT or SAT

ABDUCT - to kidnap - to take a person to a state of unlawful restraint ABHOR - to hate strongly; to loathe ABJURE - to step down ACRIMONIOUS - bitter AGGREGATE - to add AUTISM - a developmental disorder made up of a spectrum of deficits in social communication, dissociative behaviors, or excessively repetitive behaviors AUTOMOBILE - a car AUTOMOTON - a robot BALLISTIC - related to combat; enemy; having an attitude of pugnaciousness BELITTLE - to disparage BICENTENNIAL - a period of two hundred years CACHE - a hiding place CARCINOGENIC - cancer-causing; a chemical or substance known to cause cancer. CENTENNIAL - a period of 100 years CLASSIFIED - secret; clandestine. CLIQUE - a big group of select people, especially in a street gang. CLOAK - to hide CONTRAPUNTAL - in music, related or or having to do with the use of counterpoint. CONVECTION - thunderstorms or any condition related to the occurrence of thunderstorms. CONVECTIVE - related to thunderstorms or any condition related to the occurrence of thunderstorms; also refers to winter precipitation which related to heavy snowfall or heavy barrage of ice pellets - with or without the occurrence of thunder. COTERIE - a small group. COUNTERPOINT - in music, at least 2 or more voices moving independent of each other. CRAP - riff-raff; garbage. DEFICIENCY - a state of lacking in something (for example, a vitamin or mineral) DETONATION - explosion (of a bomb, firework, TNT, dynamite, etc.) DEFILLADE - cover against gunfire, grenades, bullets, or bombs DISCO - meaning "disc" or "record" in Spanish, it was a style of dance music mainly in the 1970s. DISCOTHEQUE - a dance club where people danced to disco music or have disco dance parties during mainly the 1970s. ERRONEOUS - incorrect; misleading EFFERVESCENT - bubbling EGREGIOUS - obviously mistaken; blatantly erroneous ELEVATED - up high in the area of concern; in meteorology, it refers to the atmosphere about 700 millibars or above in height above the earth. FELON - a serious infection of the palm side of the fingertip usually caused by staph bacteria FLAG - to report somebody for a violation or transgression of a rule or regulation FLUENT - have sufficient skill or ability (in) GARGATUAN - giant; huge GENIUS - very smart; highly intelligent HEMORRHAGE - bleeding HYPOGLYCEMIA - low blood sugar HYPONATREMIA - low blood sodium HYPOTENSION - low blood pressure HYPERGLYCEMIA - high blood sugar HYPERNATREMIA - high blood sodium HYPERTENSION - high blood pressure IMPLOSION - an explosion of a building designed to bring the building down in collapse instead of spreading it out. INTERCONTINENTAL - between continents JURIS DOCTOR - also known as J.D., it means "doctor of law" in Latin. JURY - a group of peers picked to do duty in the courtroom to decide if the defendant is guilty or not guilty KAPUT - out of action; out of service; no longer functiong KARATE - a type of marital art mainly from Japan, which means "empty hand" in Japanese MARTIAL - referring to something happening or something used in combat, fighting, or duelling. MYOCARDIAL - related to the heart muscle MYOCARDIUM - heart muscle; the heart NAVAL - related to the armed forces called The Navy, or related to the Navy NAVIGATE - to travel; to roam; to trek; to go on a trip to somewhere. NECROSIS - death or deceasing of a tissue or tissues in the body NECROTIC - the process of death or deceasing of a tissue or tissues in the body NINJA - a student or teacher who practices or uses the art of ninjitsu. NINJITSU - a Japanese secret martial art focusing on deception, stealthiness, and the ability to take out enemies without being noticed by other ninjas or authorities OCTOGENARIAN - a person who is from 80 to 89 years old. OCTAGON - a geometric shape with 8 sides. ORWELLIAN - a law, decree, rule, or regulation that is extremely strict and often strictly enforced PARIAH - someone shunned completely from society - an outcast PENURY - strong or severe poverty POLYGLOT - a person who has at least working or advanced knowledge of several foreign languages as well as one's native language POLYPHONY - something with many voices POLYRHYTHMIC - in music, having several rhythms in a single measure or having multiple subdivisions in meter in a single measure PUGNACIOUS - easily provoked to belligerence PYROTECHNIC - related to fireworks or its chemicals; something or event that involves fireworks QUADRIVALENT - a vaccine that has 4 killed strains of a virus or organism in its shot ROTOGATE - a rotary gate used for entry or exit to a building, or to a subway or train. SAYONARA - originally Japanese to mean "good bye", it is often used in English to mean a "farewell". SESQUICENTENNIAL - a period of 150 years. SYNDROME - a serious of physical symptoms that usually gets worse and cause gradual deterioration of the body, sometimes leading to death TAEKWONDO - a type of martial art from South Korea, which means "foot, fist, way of life" in Korean TRESPASS - entry into a property without authorization or permission to do so TRIVALENT- a vaccine that has 3 killed strains of a virus or microorganism in its shot VAPORIZE - to turn into a gas VITRIOL - abuse; severe, acidic let-down or put-down XENON - an inert gas YODEL - a series of high-pitched musical notes in singing with lots of leaps, often used to depict the peaks and valleys of mountains (such as the Swiss Alps)