The couple: Aay Preston-Myint, 32, and Colin Dickson, 28Years together: Nearly two and a half Occupations: Colin’s a metal fabricator and woodworker; Aay’s an artist, SAIC instructor, bartender/server (Analogue and the Charleston), and an organizer of the queer dance party Chances Dances. Aay: Two and a half years, almost. We technically are not legally entitled to marriage until June, but I wouldn’t consider marriage a demarcation of when our relationship became deeper, more committed, or “official....

Jeopardy This shot from a June ’87 episode isn’t helping anyone’s case. Regular Jeopardy! viewers are currently enjoying a welcome respite from the frenetic trivia stylings of Arthur Chu, a three-day champ whose game-play strategy is really smart but really annoying to watch; more on Chu in a minute. Back to Arthur Chu . . .

QI am a straight male, married to a woman for 25 years. Our marriage started to go sour about 14 years ago. Sex was infrequent and stultifying. Finally, when the kids were old enough, I made plans to separate. When my wife got wind of these plans, she finally agreed to work on our relationship. We had long and heartfelt conversations. Things got better. Sex got more frequent, if not more exciting....

Even when the weather doesn’t behave, Chicago rock fans can always tell that spring has sprung when a new album arrives from Gossip Wolf‘s favorite flame-haired sibling garage duo, White Mystery. When Alex and Francis White drop the new F.Y.M.S. (aka Fuck Your Mouth Shut), it’ll make 2017 the eighth year in a row they’ve put out a record (or in one case a movie soundtrack) on April 20. (That’s 4/20—as in pot o’clock—for all you nonjokers, nonsmokers, and non-midnight tokers out there....

Brian Jackson/Sun-Times Planning on going here tomorrow? Too bad, it’s closed! (But it will open again on Thursday.) The Chicago Public Library wants the public to know that all of its locations, “including the Harold Washington Library Center, Woodson Regional, and Sulzer Regional Libraries, will be closed on Wednesday, February 12, 2014.” In this case, Lincoln’s. CPL employees also have a day off every weekend, unless they work at the Washington, Woodson, or Sulzer libraries, or the Pumping Station outpost....

Jeffrey Bivens Beau O’Reilly Looking for something to do today? Agenda‘s got you covered. We’re also trying to get you liquored up tonight. For more on these events and others, check out the Reader‘s daily Agenda page.

The members of New York punk group Show Me the Body write barbed, sludgy songs that make it sound like they all woke up on the wrong side of the Dumpster. The band’s work draws on the distorted alt-rock and nasty pigfuck of 20-plus years ago as well as contemporary artists across a broad spectrum: the new mixtape Corpus I (Loma Vista/Concord Music Group) is a collaborative affair featuring snarling Florida rapper Denzel Curry, New York cyborg-folk mystic Eartheater, lo-fi Memphis rapper Cities Aviv, Philly noise poet Moor Mother, and Massachusetts indie hybrid Mal Devisa....

Michael Gebert Stephanie Hart at Brown Sugar Bakery My first thought on meeting Stephanie Hart at her Grand Crossing cake shop, Brown Sugar Bakery, was that if I was casting a reality TV show, I’d put her on TV, no question. This wasn’t a random thought, because she actually is going to be on TV—you can see her starting Sunday on the Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship, hosted by Bobby (progeny of Paula) Deen....

In the early 60s the ailing Italian countess Amalia Mani Mocenigo was ordered by her doctor to adopt a diet we might today label Paleolithic. In short, she wasn’t to eat cooked meat. So while she was visiting the legendary Harry’s Bar in Venice, proprietor Giuseppe Cipriani did what any resourceful, self-respecting member of the hospitality industry does when confronted with a seemingly wacky dietary restriction. He presented her with a plate of raw, tissue-thin lean prime beef, sprinkled with salt and drizzled with mustard and Worcestershire-spiked mayonnaise....

Aline Lathrop’s deft two-hander, codirected by Ann Filmer and Miguel Nuñez and currently receiving a joint premiere production (with Atlanta’s Synchronicity Theatre) at Berwyn’s 16th Street Theatre, tackles the timeless theme of how war damages soldiers and makes it hard for them to adjust to life after war. But Lathrop makes one simple and less frequently employed adjustment that makes all the difference: she tells the story from the wife’s point of view....

Last week while I was shimmying into my white and blue striped cheer skirt (four red stars emblazoned across its form-fitting spandex torso), about to start writing my annual year-end recap of how glorious the year in eating was, food writer John Kessler over at Chicago Magazine was dropping a big deuce on the city’s restaurant scene. The former Atlanta Journal-Constitution restaurant critic, who’s been a Chicagoan for some three years now, wrote a brutal five-point takedown of a once celebrated dining culture now wallowing in complacency and blinded by its own defensive, blinkered boosterism....

In a press release for Carmen, Lyric general director, president, and CEO Anthony Freud says the company’s intention is to present this most popular of all operas with “the energy the piece had when it was new.” That’ll be tough, because the promiscuous title character was a shocker to audiences when the work premiered in 1875. What is sure to still fascinate, however, are her fierce independence and Bizet’s melodic score....

Mischa Richter Dolly Wells and Emily Mortimer The closer we are to people, the weirder and more complicated those relationships tend to be. I figure good friendships are made when the reward increases in tandem with the weirdness. Seriously, if you’re close to someone and everything is smooth sailing, maybe you’re not as close as you think you are. For Dolly and Emily—that’s Dolly Wells and Emily Mortimer, the real-life best friends playing fictionalized versions of themselves on HBO’s new Doll & Em—that weirdness is a subtle and ongoing competition....

[UPDATE: Friday, the Chicago Sun-Times issued it own statement in support of longtime critic Hedy Weiss: read it here.] Meanwhile, the Chicago Theater Accountability Coalition, the group that posted the petition and promised to release a list of about 70 theaters that would be going along with the invitation ban by the end of last week, apparently has changed its mind, at least for now: no list has been released. In a heartbeat, more than 3,500 artists in our community signed a petition created by the new Chicago Theatre Accountability Coalition (ChiTAC), calling on the theatre community to cease inviting Chicago Sun-Times theater critic Hedy Weiss to productions....

Julia Thiel Journeyman Distillery’s O.C.G. apple cider liqueur The Chicago Independent Spirits Expo is one of my favorite events of the year; the offerings from the hundred-odd distilleries that participate always include new spirits from distilleries I already know and like, new spirits from brand-new distilleries, and well-established spirits from well-established distilleries that I’ve just never happened to taste before. The next day, though, regret always sets in: a product not of overimbibing the night before (not usually, anyway), but of looking again at the list of participating distillers and realizing what a small percentage of their spirits I managed to try before I reached my limit....

Full disclosure: the only reason I first attended the variety show the Curio Show was to see my friend and colleague Gwynedd Stuart perform a reading making fun of the cable access TV show Stairway to Stardom. Those familiar with her work here at the Reader know she’s one of the best when it comes to pop-culture takedowns, so I knew that she at least would entertain even if the other performers flopped....

There’s plenty to do this week. Here’s some of what we recommend: Tue 5/16: Journalist Joan Esposito hosts “How Do We Elect More Women & People of Color?”, a discussion at the Montgomery Club (500 W. Superior) about the challenges women and people of color face when trying to get on the ballot for the 2017 and 2018 elections. The panel includes Jonathan Peck, Rebecca Sive, Shobhana Johri Verma, and Angelica Heaney....

A promotional image for Tomorrow Never Knows This January, Chicago’s yearly midwinter music festival Tomorrow Never Knows will return to fill some of the city’s more intimate venues with bands and concertgoers who aren’t daunted by the freeze. Presented by Schubas and Lincoln Hall, the four-day fest also hosts shows at the Hideout and the Metro. Last year’s headliners included Superchunk, Darkside, and Oneohtrix Point Never. Now, TNK has announced its 2015 roster, and it’s filled with acts whose 2014 albums are cutting through the static....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, April 19, 2017. Jury awards $350,000 to family of teen boy fatally shot by Chicago police officer A jury awarded $350,000 in damages to the family of Christian Green, who was shot to death by Chicago police officer Robert Gonzalez in July 2013. The jurors found that Gonzalez did not reasonably believe that the 17-year-old Green’s actions “placed himself or others in imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm....

The mood among marijuana legalization advocates at the Illinois State Capitol was jubilant Wednesday after legislation was filed to legalize weed for recreational use. “Obviously, the state of Illinois needs money,” Linn says, “and people are looking at the success of [recreational marijuana sales] in Washington and Colorado.” Legalizing recreational marijuana would be a “huge positive” for the state, de Souza says. He says he hopes the state takes the same approach with recreational marijuana that it did with medical pot by setting up a strict regulatory framework for the cultivation, testing, and sale of the drug....