Collaborative performance tour by Dolores Wilber and Sarah Wilber

Rapid Pulse International Performance Festival, Defibrillator Gallery, Chicago. Juried. June 2013

http://rapidpulse.org/

“I have been living with my aunt, Dolores Wilber, in Wicker Park for almost three years since my dad died and my mom could not take care of me. I am doing a tour of my favorite places in the neighborhood.” –Sarah/Sahar Wilber

Highlights of the tour include:

• CVS Pharmacy at Milwaukee and Division
  “Formerly Home Bank and Trust Company, built in the 1920s, and later MB/Manufacturers Bank, now a really crappy drugstore is to be used in emergency situations only when you need earphones, shampoo, lipstick, and hopefully not a prescription. This used to be a really cool bank that has a beautiful promenade on the second level but you can only see it look through and around the obnoxious suspended fluorescent lights. There used to be huge windows in this building that are now cemented closed. Below street level is The Bedford, hip restaurant and bar in the former bank vault, mostly for adults but kids can check it out.
  • Walgreens pharmacy at Milwaukee and North
  “This is also a former Bank, Noel State Bank building from 1919. This is an awesome store with an escalator. I love Walgreens. My aunt thinks I’m crazy. I don’t care, this is the best. Little toys, make-up, magazines. It’s clean and doesn’t have a stained carpet like CVS. This place was boarded up for years until Walgreens took over late last year. Kanye West did a video at midnight here filling the streets of the six-corner intersection of Milwaukee, Damen and North Avenue.
  • Favorite restaurants
  Ameer Kabob, Middle Eastern near Defibrillator Gallery. I like this place because it’s like you’re in somebody’s kitchen. There’s a TV and the food is good and not too spicy if you don’t want it like that. Everybody is nice. Picante taqueria has the best tacos. Carne asada is the good but there are also fish tacos since I don’t eat meat anymore. Good guacamole. You can sit outside and see people with their dogs or people who are drunk if it’s later. A good place to just sit and look. Occasionally somebody creepy, but not too often. Subway on Western near Division. I love Subway. I tell my aunt it’s healthy (that’s what the commercials say) but my aunt says I am too gullible and you cannot believe commercials. I still like it. You can see lots of teenagers from Roberto Clemente High School. One of the women who worked here was shot and killed during a robbery last Fall. I remember her and it makes me feel really sad and scared sometimes. So we didn’t go in there for a while but then my aunt said we were punishing the owner or manager for something that was horrible and not their fault at all. So now we go again.
  • Sahar liquor store at Wood and Division.
  I like this place because it’s my name re-arranged. I’m dyslexic so words look like this to me all the time, which is a pain to read, but I’m getting better. I also just like how it looks and it’s great if you’re going for a walk and want to get something to drink because they have lots to drink (including no alcohol for kids like me). I also like them because they let me use the bathroom once which they don’t usually do but they let me use it because I’m a kid. But they said my aunt had to come in with me which I always thought was weird. Also, Sahar is the name of the Iranian woman who worked for the Canadian ambassador in the movie Argo who was a great hero and I would like to be like her.
  • My favorite ice cream shop on Division, Caffe Gelato, for the best ice cream ever.
  • I can show you he best graffiti if it’s still up too.”