We tend to think about culture in America these days as consumable products or ticketed events, and so the “cultural coverage” most media outlets offer is reduced to binary reviews: should one or should one not pay hard-earned money for the product or event in question? (“When I hear the word ‘culture’ I take out my checkbook,” visual artist Barbara Kruger posed in the 1980s.) Yet actual culture today—the musical, gustatory, aesthetic, movement-based, and intellectual pursuits of humans—is in greater flux than even the stock market. The #MeToo movement would seem to be a positive change for women, for example, although I can understand how it may be less delightful for rapists. ICE raids are profoundly negative, not just for the individuals whose lives are violently disrupted, but for their families and communities who must live every day with a warranted fear of attack and expulsion. Yet raids continue, presumably because the fears around migration that they generate benefits those in comfort.
Joravsky sets the tone for our mayoral coverage with a petitioning-process explainer in this issue, and we’ve got a peek at some new cultural discussions at the Field Museum. Comics reporter Anya Davidson is back to draw out the political themes in a recent discussion of the 1983 Lizzie Borden film Born in Flames, and Mike Sula’s restaurant preview looks at how one eatery is coping with life—and death—as the president conspires to Make America Great Again.
