At first, when Stephanie Douglass saw the orange spots covering plants and trees all over the ten-acre organic farm she manages, she thought it might be some sort of fungus or bacterial infection. The spotting on the leaves was indiscriminate, attacking everything from tomatoes to peppers to cucumbers to basil to sunchokes to spinach. Within two weeks the tissue on some of most heavily affected plants necrotized and developed holes, giving their leaves the texture of Swiss cheese....

When I first heard about “Mount Bridgeport” I imagined a large mountain in some magical part of Chicago I’d never seen before. I readied myself to hike up rough terrain and get a taste of the wilderness within the city limits. But when I arrived at Palmisano Park I saw that the “mount” was really more of a hill. At first, I was disappointed—it looked like I’d put my hiking boots on for nothing....

Like most festivals with more than one stage, Pitchfork sometimes books two great acts to play overlapping sets, forcing fans to make a painful choice. Reader writers found quite a few of those conflicts on the fest’s schedule, and thought long and hard about who they’d go to see. These write-ups compare those decisions with the “winners” as determined by Pitchfork itself, via rounded averages of the ratings the site has given to each artist’s releases....

Holidays don’t make us any deeper, but they give our minds a little room to wander. I find myself with a few curious things to say about the New York Times, where the most interesting item I read over the past two weeks was a correction. A chart on Friday with an article about racial disparities in deaths from breast cancer misstated the mortality rate gap between black women and white women in Tennessee....

Puig Detroyer’s best attribute is the name Puig Destroyer. Because punning on the name of grind powerhouse Pig Destroyer to incorporate Cuban wunderkind outfielder Yasiel Puig is just kind of brilliant, right? The gimmick, as executed by four Dodgers fans/musicians (two dudes from Kowloon Walled City, one from Curl Up and Die, and one from Thrice), created some ripples in the metal scene in July of 2013 when Puig Destroyer first hurled heaters like “Destroyer of Baseballs” and “Stop Fucking Bunting” on their self-titled debut....

Tim Jones Darkside Looking for something to do today? Agenda‘s got you covered. For more on these events and others, check out the Reader‘s daily Agenda page.

There are few musicians at work with the curiosity, rigor, and range of Seattle-area violist Eyvind Kang, who has gradually expanded his arsenal to include string instruments like the Persian setar and the Indonesian plucked zither called the kecapi. Those additions weren’t without study—Kang is fluent in Arabic, Persian, and Indonesian traditions as well as improvisation, jazz, and art-pop, and he’s played with guitarist Bill Frisell and crafted string arrangements for the likes of Aoife O’Donovan and Marissa Nadler....

Since fall 2017, Haley Fohr has been on the road playing songs from Reaching for Indigo (Drag City), the sixth full-length by her primary musical project, Circuit des Yeux. The singer-guitarist is finishing the tour and the year with a three-night weekly residency at the Hideout entitled Intentions of Sociable Creativity Through Light & Sound, which will retire the album’s material, celebrate Fohr’s relationship to Chicago’s experimental- and improvised-music communities, and point toward the music she’ll make in 2019....

If last year was all about Italian food, this year was all about red meat, with some five major steak houses opening over the past 12 months. Steak houses are sort of like the new Union Stockyards, with a never-ending supply of conventioneers herding into these cow palaces, releasing cash from their expense accounts like bovine emissions. Historically, they’ve been predictable, and I’ve tended to greet the announcement of a new one with dread....

The villain of The Perfect Guy, currently the number one movie in America, is an IT expert who uses his skills to spy on the heroine and make her life a living hell. This premise touches on fears of overreaching Internet surveillance, a common anxiety in light of Edward Snowden’s revelations. Yet the script, written by Tyger Williams from a story created by Williams and Alan McElroy, doesn’t really explore the zeitgeist—it simply exploits it for a reasonably engaging thriller with some topical overtones....

Look, I think Amy Schumer’s funny. When I spotted an essay online late Monday night ripping Schumer a new butthole over ugly, racist humor that makes her a few fast bucks but poisons the well of American comity, my reaction was, “Say wha’?” But I was half asleep. I figured the authors might be making good points I was too wiped out to appreciate, so I let it go. I say apparently because their next sentence is not totally clear....

Now in their 27th year, Mexico City quartet Café Tacuba have arguably done more than anyone to give Mexican rock music a broad, serious platform worldwide. As key players in the ascent of rock en español, the group refused to sing in English and deftly forged a vanguard sound that encouraged countless others in Latin America to follow their own creative imperatives rather than imitate bands in the U.S. or Europe....

During last winter’s polar vortex, the brave souls who cycled through the ice, snow, salt, and sludge could be viewed as examples of midwest resiliency. They also could be seen as bundled-up question marks, daring us to explain why we endure a Hoth-like landscape. The contest focuses on urban utility bikes and encourages both iterative design and a fusion of craft and technology. Alderman’s collaboration with Minimal went according to script....

Like most festivals with more than one stage, Pitchfork sometimes books two great acts to play overlapping sets, forcing fans to make a painful choice. Reader writers found quite a few of those conflicts on the fest’s schedule, and thought long and hard about who they’d go to see. These write-ups compare those decisions with the “winners” as determined by Pitchfork itself, via rounded averages of the ratings the site has given to each artist’s releases....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Tuesday, February 14, 2017. Happy Valentine’s Day! Activist Jedidiah Brown is reportedly OK after apparent suicide attempt Neighborhood activist Jedidiah Brown is doing better after his suicide attempt near Buckingham Fountain shut down Lake Shore Drive in the Loop for an hour and a half Sunday evening. “I’m not wanting to die anymore but whoa the pain is cutting deep,” Brown wrote in a Facebook post Monday afternoon....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Thursday, August 17, 2017. Attorney General Sessions slams Emanuel, Chicago’s sanctuary city policy in speech Attorney General Jeff Sessions attacked Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago’s sanctuary city policy again Wednesday. The Department of Justice previewed the speech in a statement, saying that Sessions would “take on Chicago political leadership.” “Respect for the rule of law has broken down. In Chicago, their so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies are just one sad example,” Sessions said, according to a DOJ excerpt....

Eric Clark Randolph Street Market Looking for something to do today? Agenda‘s got you covered. For more on these events and others, check out the Reader‘s daily Agenda page.