Alok Vaid-Menon is an artist. Alok Vaid-Menon is not an artist. Alok Vaid-Menon is an artist. Alok Vaid-Menon is not an artist. Alok (they/them), a gender non-conforming performance artist and writer, sometimes uses breathless repetition in their monologues to underscore important points. Sometimes these monologues go on for 30 minutes straight, without symmetry, arc, or pause. Sometimes these monologues have …

They used to call Chicago the Jewel of the Prairie. I call it a small blue island in a vast sea of red. Not that that’s a good thing. Sometimes we’re the Windy City, for either the politics or the meteorology. Other times we’re Second City, for either our centuries-old phallic competition with New York City or how we rebuilt …