Though Chicago is popularly considered the most dangerous city in America, the city’s crime rates are actually at a “historic low” (or cops are fudging the numbers at “historically high” levels). But for one night this December, a Logan Square bar will turn into a “wretched hive of scum and villainy.” On Dec. 16, The Whistler will transform from a hipster-filled “part-cocktail bar, part-record label, part art-gallery, and part-live music venue,” into a recreation of the cantina from Star Wars: A New Hope (albeit, one which will presumably still be filled with hipsters and perhaps somebody cos-playing that aggro dude with the testicle mouth.
As reported by Timeout Chicago:
With the help of event organizers Silent Reading, the Whistler will be decorated to match the ambience of a bar where severed appendages and blaster shoot-outs are the norm. Local musicians will play the role of the cantina’s house band Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes, performing renditions of trilogy tunes (including the ubiquitous “Cantina Band” song)…the cocktail menu will also be overhauled to fit the galactic theme.
As fun as this event sounds, I think it’s important to remember that on a violent crimes per second basis, the Mos Eisley cantina was almost as dangerous as the Double Deuce. In just a few minutes of screen time in the cantina, there was a bar fight, a laser sword dismemberment, a straight-up murder, a shootout with the authorities, and some droid-based discrimination that maybe isn’t technically a crime, but really should be. A theory for what caused all this violence:
That is (presumably) the only song Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes play in the cantina. Just try listening to that song for more than two minutes without being driven to a twitching rage. Surely, anyone who had to endure it while drunk would be eager to hassle a moisture farmer. (Author’s note: made it, but just barely)
Of course, since The Whistler will be filled with cos-players and hipsters when it transforms into the Mos Eisley cantina, the inevitable bar fights will be harmless and awkward and harmless and sad respectively, so Chicago’s crime statistics should remain comfortably low for the night.
