The Daily Northwestern
A Noah Direction ‘The Daily Show’ and Trevor Noah come to Chicago p.4
Music for the Soul
Nonprofit seeks to use music to aid people with dementia p.10
The Artist Strikes Back Inside Northwestern Prof. Michael Rakowitz’s newest exhibition p.12
November 2017
SEPTEMBER 23, 2017–MARCH 11, 2018
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THE MONTHLY Contents
A Noah Direction
Trevor Noah comes to Chicago, tackles race relations
Laugh About It
Off Script: A visit to the Presidential Twitter Library
Music for the Soul
Nonprofit seeks to use music to aid people with dementia
The Artist Strikes Back
Inside NU Prof. Michael Rakowitz’s newest exhibition
04 08 10 12
Staff of The Monthly Issue 5
Stavros Agorakis A&E Editor Jane Recker Assistant A&E Editor Ruiqi Chen Design Editor
Mariana Alfaro Allyson Chiu Rishika Dugyala Madeleine Fernando Writers
Cover photo and page 3 photo: Getty Images for Comedy Central
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A NOAH DIRECTION ‘The Daily Show’ comes to Chicago, tackles issues surrounding race relations — by Allyson Chiu and Rishika Dugyala
C
HICAGO –– When “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” needs a white male’s point of view, it turns to correspondent Michael Kosta. “I am the only white male, which is funny considering our country,” Kosta told The Daily. “Now, if there’s, ‘Hey we need a white male perspective,’ then I’m like, ‘Hey I’m over here.’” In addition to Noah, the South African and Swiss host who took over in 2015, the current cast of “The Daily Show” includes six correspondents: a black woman, a white woman, a Muslim man, a Malaysian-born Chinese man, a black man and Kosta. With the likes of Desi Lydic, Ronny Chieng, Roy Wood Jr. and Dulcé Sloan signing on as correspondents during Noah’s tenure, “The Daily Show” has officially become one of television’s most diverse late-night comedy series. In a November 2015 interview with NPR, Noah said he was “very conscious” of comedy’s lack of diversity, and wanted
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to “correct it” by finding people whose talents have been overlooked in the past. “Yes, diversity is work,” he said. “You have to go do diversity, but people genuinely underestimate the value of that. … I can tell you what a difference it makes. It’s just having different eyes, having different voices, having an honest opinion.” Aiming for diversity Chieng told The Daily people look to the show’s cast to address content affecting a variety of diverse communities. “Just seeing a different face talking about anything makes people go, ‘Oh, at least they know that there’s people there who look like me, who talk like me or who think like me,’” he said. The diverse mix of correspondents also helps determine what stories are pitched during meetings and whether a segment accurately represents the views of the demographic it focuses on, Chieng said. Sometimes in meetings, a cast member will vocalize a misinformed opinion on an
issue affecting a minority group, Chieng said. But because “The Daily Show” has correspondents from various backgrounds, they can ensure these groups’ beliefs are accurately conveyed. “When it’s an Asian person pitching an Asian story, I think it carries more weight than having people ‘whitesplain’ an issue,” Chieng said. “I can’t think like a white woman and a white woman can’t think like me.” Lydic, “The Daily Show’s” only white female correspondent, described the latenight program as “progressive.” She told The Daily that the show is able to cover topics in an “authentic and honest” way because of its cast. She said other, less diverse shows may miss out on this opportunity and that Noah has played a big part in expanding the issues discussed during the show. “That is one of the great benefits of being part of this show,” Lydic said. “We need to talk about a lot of things going on in the country and in the world, and
it takes a lot of different perspectives to be able to do it.” The trip west A day before starting to tape “The Daily Show Undesked Chicago 2017: Let’s Do This Before It Gets Too Damn Cold,” Noah graced the stage of Cahn Auditorium to participate in a talk sponsored by The New York Times. Noah addressed a full house, discussing how he navigated racial divides as a biracial man in South Africa and, later, in the U.S. Noah approached the Chicago episodes through a similar lens, as he and the show’s correspondents covered topics including gun violence, racial segregation and the latest headlines about President Donald Trump. Communication senior Halle Lukasiewicz, who worked on the Chicago show, told The Daily that Noah’s mixed ethnicity influences his work and distinguishes “The Daily Show” from other late-night comedy shows. “‘The Daily Show’ is hysterical and it’s using satire to try and make a difference, but I think there’s just, there’s something deeper,” Lukasiewicz said. “They are on the front lines of where late night is going.” In front of a set designed to look like CTA tracks, Noah
Photos: Source: Getty Images for Comedy Central
taped the Chicago series without a signature prop: his desk. Leaving the New York studio for the first time this year, “The Daily Show” relocated to the Athenaeum Theatre in north Chicago to record the four-part series. Noah interviewed famous Chicago natives such as rappers Common and Vic Mensa, former Education Secretary Arne Duncan, former street gang leader-turned-activist Curtis Toler and actress/ writer Lena Wa i t h e , an Evanston Township High School graduate.
Mensa, a biracial artist who was featured in the series’ final episode on Oct. 19, shared his experience growing up on the South Side of Chicago — which he called a “hotbed” of culture. He, like Noah, said he didn’t understand the concept of race until he was 11 or 12 years old. “As police were singling me out and treating me differently than my white counterparts in our transgressions, I started to realize the world had decided for me and that I was branded,” he said. In light of the “fear” people are feeling across the world, Mensa said his new album, “The Autobiography,” tries to break down barriers between people and spread empathy. The album, he added, is an attempt to bring individuals to the same “human level,” where everyone experiences the same basic emotions. Mensa also commented on race relations in Chicago. He said black rage was “engineered” due to the city’s history of redlining, faulty loans to minorities and the creation of “projects” in black neighborhoods. This past, he added, has bled
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“That is one of the great benefits of being part of this show. We need to talk about a lot of things going on in the country and in the world, and it takes a lot of different perspectives to be able to do it.” — “The Daily Show” correspondent Desi Lydic
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into present-day Chicago life, which is often misrepresented. “I want somebody to be forced to understand the position of people in Chicago,” he said. “Our situation is very often trivialized and sensationalized and turned into a headline.” Seal of approval Chicago native Camiah Kincaid, who attended the Oct. 19 taping featuring
Mensa, told The Daily she was glad guest speakers addressed the reality of racial tensions. As someone who also hails from the South Side, Kincaid said Mensa’s views resonated with her. Kincaid said she’s been a fan of the show for years — even before Noah became the host — and feels it “took a good turn” under the South African comedian. “I’m a black woman, so I like the fact that he deals with racial topics — not even
just black topics, but in general with what’s going on with all of us in the world,” she said. “I do like the fact that an intelligent black man took over this show and he’s able to still relate to everyone.” Part of what makes the show relatable is its diverse team, said Hector Adames, a professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology who was also at the Oct. 19 taping. Adames told The Daily the show creates a space in which people of color — like himself — can deal with “oppression” and serious current events through comedy offered by people who look like them. “I’m drawn to it because ‘The Daily Show’ is a reflection of what the future of ... America is,” he said. “The United States is becoming more multiracial, more multicultural and more multilingual.” Katy Smyser, an investigative producer for NBC, attended the taping with her husband and daughter. She told The Daily her family has followed the show for decades and that she likes seeing Noah “be his own person.” Smyser said diversity in entertainment and news has only recently started to gain traction. “I sort of like it when I don’t get a joke,” Smyser said. “You know, I’m too old to understand something, or I’m too white to understand something.” Kosta, one of the correspondents, said the show has benefited from its team members’ diverse viewpoints. He added that it is a “smart move” for a show’s cast to come from different backgrounds. “One’s point of view is so unique to how they grow up and how they’re raised,” he said. “I’m baffled that more networks don’t do that, so I applaud Comedy Central, I applaud Trevor because he’s essentially who hires us.” In the 2015 NPR interview, Noah added that wanting to make change and actually doing it are two different things. So, after receiving only a handful of applications from black comedians for “The Daily Show,” Noah went out and looked for them himself. When the host signed off on Oct. 19, he advised audience members to do something similar in their own lives. “White people, find some black friends,” Noah said. “Step out of your comfort zone.” ◊
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Off Script: A cathartic visit to the Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library
A
s I walked through the Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library — a pop-up exhibit set up by Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” in Chicago’s Union Station — I couldn’t help but think, “Oh, there’s no way he tweeted that” after stumbling upon some random presidential tweet framed in gold. On display were some of the president’s Twitter masterpieces, including his “birther” claim (“An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama’s birth certificate is a fraud”) and the tweet where he claimed to “love Hispanics” while holding the very white dish known as a “taco bowl.”
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— by Mariana Alfaro
But even as I tried to convince myself that some of these presidential tweets weren’t real, they were, and they now live in posterity — mostly thanks to the law that mandates all of the administration’s online messages be stored away in the Library of Congress. Though it’s been almost a year since the election, I’m still getting used to living in an America where, at any given time, we’re a tweet or two away from a national, breaking news story. I am not here to question how we got into this situation — actually, scratch that, I’m not American, so technically I am not here to question how you guys got into this situation. What I am here for is Photos: Rishika Dugyala/Daily Senior Staffer
to offer some perspective — as a foreign observer and as an overall fan of the United States of America — on what is going on and how to deal with it, aided by the wise words from some of Noah’s correspondents, whom I had the pleasure to meet last week when they visited Chicago. Before I go into that, I must note that, to me, comedy is one of the best coping mechanisms available for stressed humans. Good comedy can be honest, cathartic, multifaceted and — best of all — does not induce hangovers. However, as we venture deeper into this administration, mainstream comedy not only gets more and more attached to poking fun at Washington, it also edges dangerously close to normalization and erasure of non-dominant narratives. Take a look at contemporary late-night television shows — from Jimmy Fallon’s “The Tonight Show” to Northwestern alum Stephen Colbert’s (Communication ’86) “The Late Show” — and you’ll notice that most of them have at least four things in common: They are shows hosted by men who are straight, white and left-leaning. Comedian and former “Daily Show” correspondent Samantha Bee is late night’s leading woman, hosting “Full Frontal” on TBS and making a brand out of the slogan “Nasty Woman.” But one white woman in latenight television — arguably the highest achievement in the world of comedy — is not enough. And, though I remain hopeful, I am not holding my breath waiting for non-straight, Latinx, Middle Eastern, Native American or Asian comedians to sit behind a beautiful mahogany desk on television between the hours of 10 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. I also wouldn’t hold my breath for a conservative comedian to sign a contract with any of the major networks airing late-night shows. Right now, the vast majority of the comedy offered to us to help make light of this situation is limited to a bunch of straight, liberal white men who, though funny, can’t — and probably shouldn’t — broach the topics that afflict viewers of identities vastly different from their own. This is why Trevor Noah’s show means so much to me. There’s something about seeing a person of color behind that desk, delivering deliciously-written zingers every night, comfortably knowing that we are getting something more than a white man’s perspective on things. Not that the other shows don’t employ writers of color; an example is Seth Meyers’ “Late Night,” which features comedians of color like Amber Ruffin. But “The Daily Show” counts with a cast of comedians — dubbed “correspondents” — that all bring perspectives radically different than Noah’s to the show. Which brings us back to the Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library. As I made my way through the tweets, I kept my eye on the correspondents around me. Desi Lydic,
who was hired two years ago while pregnant with her first child, laughed at every other tweet as she strolled around the exhibit with the newly-hired Michael Kosta, who described himself as the show’s “white, male perspective.” Dulcé Sloan, also a new hire, played around with the plastic roses left behind on the exhibit’s memorial to the president’s erased tweets. Malaysian-born Ronny Chieng, who moved to the United States to pursue comedy, sat on the golden toilet, pretending to tweet some deep thoughts. I asked Lydic what she thought of the role diversity plays on their show. To her, the diverse cast allows “The Daily Show” to cover things “in a way that feels really authentic and honest and in a way other shows may not have the same opportunity to do.” “There are many pieces that I can’t do as a white person that Hasan (Minhaj) can speak to,” she said. “There are things that only Ronny can speak to. There are things that only Roy (Wood Jr.) can speak to. Things that only Michael Kosta as an entitled white asshole can speak to, just kidding. He knows what role he plays on the show.” These are all people with very different perspectives on life who were somehow brought together by destiny — and casting directors — to make light of issues afflicting more than half of Americans. According to the Pew Research Center, 58 percent of Americans “do not like the way Trump conducts himself as president.” And somehow, seeing them laugh about the whole ordeal made me feel better. When I asked Chieng what he made out of this entire situation — as a foreigner, as an Asian man — he said that, as a professional comedian, it is his job to see the world “a little differently” than everyone else. “When we see things that upset, we don’t really get angry ourselves,” he said. “(Our) first reaction is ‘oh that’s funny because of this,’ or we think of the funny angle.” The absolute absurdity of the room — and “The Daily Show’s” funny angle — was literally tactile. I ran my hands on the golden toilet resting on a platform, surrounded by golden curtains and soft, red robes, which served as the show’s incarnation of what the president’s tweet throne might look like. As hundreds of presidential comments surrounded me — from insults hurled toward the Emmy’s (they are “sooooo boring!”) to messages that could only be described as holiday cheer (“Happy 4th of July to everyone, including the haters and losers!”) — I forgot about the breaking news notifications buzzing on my phone. I even forgot about my status as a foreign “alien” living in a very tumultuous time in American immigration history. All I could think about was “wow, he really did tweet that.” And I couldn’t help but laugh. ◊
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Nonprofit seeks to improve quality of life through music for people with dementia 1
— by Madeleine Fernando
W
hile music is typically said to heal the soul, the Songs by Heart Foundation is using music to restore what medicine can’t for millions of people with dementia. Songs by Heart, launched in 2015, is a nonprofit organization that brings professional musicians to memory care facilities in hopes of improving the quality of life for people with dementia. Bienen artist-in-residence Nancy Gustafson, the organization’s founder, said she was inspired to create the nonprofit after witnessing music’s extraordinary effects on her mother, who struggled with advanced
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dementia. After her mother was diagnosed and later moved to a memory care facility, she gradually became less responsive as the disease progressed, Gustafson said. Her mother lost the ability to connect with other people and recognize her own family. “I found it absolutely devastatingly heartbreaking to see my mother looking so sad and so lonely and so confused,” Gustafson said. “It was so difficult because I couldn’t connect to her on any level. … I would talk and she would just kind of stare.” After several visits with no progress made, Gustafson turned to music, a love that she
shared with her mother. She pulled her mother’s wheelchair next to the piano and tried to play and sing along to songs from an episcopal hymnal she knew her mother would recognize. While Gustafson was playing, she said she soon realized her mother was singing along. After about 15 minutes at the piano, Gustafson turned to her mother, who criticized her piano ability commenting, “You know, that’s not very good.” “Not only did she talk and put two words together, but she also responded and said something she would’ve said to me when I was practicing the piano,” Gustafson said. Photos: Source: Emily Becker
“I couldn’t believe it because all of a sudden there was my mom.” When Gustafson came back the next month and saw repeated success, she knew she had found something special, she said. With the help of Emily Becker (Bienen ’09), Gustafson began a research project at three Presbyterian retirement homes in Evanston, Lake Forest and Arlington Heights. From the research gathered at these sites, Songs By Heart was born. In the two years since the program’s inception, the organization has grown from serving these three locations in the Chicago area to over 30 sites across the United States, said Becker, the group’s artistic administrator. Gustafson said the organization frequently receives requests to expand to other locations across the country, and the nonprofit is currently trying to fulfill those needs. Ideally, Gustafson said she envisions the program being offered for every person with Alzheimer’s or dementia at least five days a week. Becker added that one of the nonprofit’s
main goals is to expand its support staff in various regions so Songs by Heart can reach even more people who have dementia. The organization has seen tremendous success in getting residents to engage with the program, she said. “I’ve seen people who are not able to speak or to form coherent sentences before a session and then throughout the session, they sing words and then after you can ask them a question and they can form an actual answer,” Becker said. “Their thoughts seem to be a little bit more organized than before we did the music.” The program’s sessions are typically 45 minutes, in which one singer and one pianist lead a sing-along with audience members. Each singer develops a unique song list each day, choosing the favorite songs of the community — ranging from Disney classics to Frank Sinatra ballads. Bienen junior Anna Piparo, a singer in the program, said she joined the organization with the hopes of putting her musical background to a good cause. Seeing how much music impacts residents is something
that is “super special” to be a part of, she said. “You’re singing songs they know from when they were growing up … and their faces just light up and they’re singing the words and they’re holding your hands when you’re dancing with them,” Piparo said. “You bring this familiar music into their lives and their world changes for that (session).” Gustafson said she recruits singers who have “a beautiful voice, a wonderful smile and a huge heart.” All singers are trained by the organization’s certified music therapist, who teaches singers how to interact with residents and connect with them through music and physical contact. Songs by Heart takes music therapy “one step further,” Gustafson said. Unlike most music programs, which are non-interactive or less regular, the organization allows residents to directly engage with singers and form intimate connections with them, she said. Gustafson added that until there is a cure for dementia and Alzheimer’s, the way to improve the lives of people with these diseases is “just a song away.” ◊
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Inside Northwestern Prof. Michael Rakowitz’s newest exhibition at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art
T
he entrance to “Backstroke of the West” is guarded by a behemoth of plywood with a small opening in the center. Walking through to the front of the set piece-like construct, a reverse glance reveals what the audience sees: a massive, Mesopotamian gate constructed of azure tiles. The gate is lined by a collection of ancient Babylonian artifacts and date trees, while, straight ahead, two giant hands — holding two equally giant swords — guard the room. Upon second glance, though, this Middle Eastern illusion begins to fade. The azure tiles reveal themselves to be nothing more than an array of carefully placed
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Pepsi packaging, the Babylonian artifacts are, in fact, constructed by food wrappers, and the swords — they’re just a couple of oversized lightsabers. This pop-infused collection is the result of over 20 years of work from Art Theory and Practice Prof. Michael Rakowitz, whose newest exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art features his “greatest hits” from over the years. The exhibit will run until March 4. Rakowitz collaborated with Robert Heishman (Weinberg ’12), his former graduate student, who served as the director of photography for a video presentation in the exhibit. Heishman said Rakowitz is
— by Jane Recker a great partner, and respects other people’s voices and inputs. “(Rakowitz) has a core of what his aim is for the project, but he allows for other voices to speak for themselves,” Heishman said. “He still allows it to be his work through the highlighting of the human condition and using pop culture in ways to help people understand the vulcanizing of the Middle East.” Rakowitz, an Iraqi-American artist, said he channels a lot of his background and his views on the Gulf War in his work. The largest project in “Backstroke of the West,” called “The invisible enemy should not exist,” was inspired by widespread looting Photos: Katie Pach/Daily Senior Staffer
in Iraq. “The looting of the Iraq museum was the first moment of pathos during the war,” Rakowitz said. “It wasn’t just an Iraqi problem, it was a human problem. It seemed like a lost opportunity, for the outrage around missing objects to turn into outrage around missing bodies, the actual people who had been lost.” The collection features recreations of statues and artifacts from ancient Mesopotamia that were lost or destroyed in the war. Rakowitz said the sculptures have a 3-D Monet-esque effect. From a distance, they appear to be real, ancient artifacts with worn paint and chipping edges, but on a more careful look, it’s clear each
structure was created using newspapers and wrappers. Rakowitz said the print publications he used were newspapers given to diasporic communities forced out of Iraq, and the packaging came from various foods that were often used to smuggle in Iraqi commodities. While these faux artifacts and statues traveled fairly easily to Chicago, some of the pieces were more difficult to install, Rakowitz said. “RETURN,” a living, breathing piece of art in the form of a small Brooklyn shop that sold Iraqi dates, appears in the exhibition through a video with a viewing bench flanked by Iraqi date trees in pots.
Rakowitz said he chose to use Iraqi dates as the core component of this project because they have a large cultural and economic significance in Iraqi culture. “The environmental destruction that emerged in the aftermath of the war hardly ever gets talked about,” he said. “There were 30 million date palms in the 1970s in Iraq. … It was the country’s second-largest economy behind oil. At the end of the Gulf War, there were just (two) million date palms left. These dates are like surrogates for the people who have suffered.” Established at the height of the Gulf War, the shop was the only place in New York selling Iraqi products. As a result, Rakowitz received breaking news in 2006, just days after he closed the store. “I knew Saddam (Hussein) was going to be killed, and the only reason I knew that was because I was the only openly Iraqi business in New York at the time,” he said. In the hours before Hussein’s execution, CNN called Rakowitz for a comment, he said. He declined, and said he had to keep the news secret from everyone for 12 hours until it was broken to the rest of the world. Elements of Hussein’s influence permeate the exhibit elsewhere. Featured prominently at the center of the gallery is a collection of “Star Wars” memorabilia. Hussein was obsessed with George Lucas’ franchise, Rakowitz said. The Victory Arch in central Baghdad, which commemorates the Hussein-led
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Iran-Iraq War, features a pair of hands holding crossed swords echoing the iconic visual of dueling lightsabers. Rakowitz said he initially thought this was a coincidence, but further research proved it was anything but. “The night before the Gulf War began, Saddam actually had his entire army march underneath the monument to the ‘Star Wars’ theme song playing over and over and over again,” he said. Rakowitz decided to recreate the arch with a healthy dose of Jedi influence. The piece features two hands the size of golden retrievers crossing proportionally oversized lightsabers. The hands are constructed out of pages from one of Hussein’s novels, which Rakowitz said were essentially “Star Wars” fan fiction. One of these pieces is an installation that shows how an Iraqi paramilitary unit
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run by Hussein’s son modeled its uniforms after Darth Vader. The display features a Samurai helmet and a World War I gas mask — the inspirations for the Vader helmet — a copy of Lucas’s creation and the Fedayeen Saddam helmet that Rakowitz acquired. Rakowitz bought the helmet off eBay out of curiosity, but soon realized its artistic potential. “(The Iraqis) first saw themselves as this Luke Skywalker character, as this ally of the United States,” he said. “Then, if you think about how the Iraqis were constantly humiliated after the first Gulf War with the constant (United Nations) inspections, it’s like they said, ‘Oh this is what you think of us? Then we’ll become that.’ So, they become this Darth Vader character.” Weinberg sophomore Chrissy Foo said she thought Rakowitz’s use of pop culture
was particularly effective in shedding light on a topic that doesn’t receive a lot of recognition in the U.S. “I thought it was very engaging,” she said. “It definitely made (the exhibit) more intriguing because it pulled people in and was relevant to other things (in their lives).” Apart from the MCA collection, Rakowitz will also soon install a piece on the Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square that will continue his work on “The invisible enemy should not exist,” which now includes artifacts lost or destroyed at the hands of the Islamic State. With his continuing work, Rakowitz said he wants to make it known that the war is not over, and that there continue to be negative cultural effects. “I’m trying to humanize the people who have been dehumanized,” he said.◊
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