John H. White/Sun-Times Media If you see Rep Derrick Smith, please ask him to check his voice mail. And his e-mail. Anybody seen Derrick Smith? And if that weren’t enough, Smith has to continue to prepare for his May trial in federal court for allegedly taking a $7,000 bribe. Great! I was sure he’d be happy to hear from reporters too—even if he hasn’t had the chance to return Ben Joravsky’s call from a year and a half ago just yet....

You don’t need me, a newspaper reporter, to tell you that we’re living in strange times. I think we always knew deep down that if the Cubs won the World Series there would be some irreparable shift in the universe, but then we were so caught up in the excitement of flying the W flag and watching baseball in November that it all kind of got away from us. And then less than a week later, Donald Trump was elected president....

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....

Can we just talk about Ms. Lauryn Hill‘s glorious outfit for the closing night of Pitchfork 2018? Such a bold mix of proportions, volumes, textures, gender identifiers, and casual/formal pieces. Mixing is where it’s at. And festivalgoers also did that beautifully, with a very diverse crowd sporting outfits that go way beyond the basic boho look. See some of the creative combinations they put together in the photos below.

Lowriders are much more than just decked-out automobiles. The distinctive elements of the custom vehicles—their sidewalk-scraping stature, powerful hydraulic lift systems, decorative paint jobs, and well-appointed interiors—are all rooted in Mexican-American pride. The subculture, which emerged in southern California in the middle of the last century, was born out of a desire to stray from the predominant Anglo car culture and create something uniquely Chicano. In the 1970s, Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles was a veritable auto show every Saturday night as lowriders cruised the strip....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, May 3, 2017. Analyzing how the “Laquan effect” has changed Chicago Gun violence has increased dramatically in Chicago since the November 2015 release of a police dashcam video showing former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke shooting unarmed 17-year-old Laquan McDonald to death with 16 shots. The video angered the majority of Chicagoans, including the at-risk west-side children and teens taught boxing by former gang member Derek Brown....

We’re officially less than a year from the 2016 presidential election, which makes this the perfect season for “Run for President,” Kathryn Andrews’s new mixed-media show at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Andrews simultaneously mocks the political process and ponders why people run for president in the first place. 

Trey McIntyre The Vinegar Works “Edward Gorey takes us through the darker parts of our psyche in this really adorable way,” says Boise-based choreographer Trey McIntrye, whose new Harris Theater cocommission, The Vinegar Works, features four vignettes derived from The Gashlycrumb Tinies and other cute and sick Gorey tales. Thu 4/3, 7:30 PM, Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph, 312-334-7777, harristheaterchicago.com, $25-$55.

Theater Oobleck’s Martha Bayne sounds overwhelmed when we talk by phone. Over the August 4 weekend Oobleck will be producing Closed Casket, which she describes as a “music project being put on by a theater company that involves a visual art form no one understands.” She adds that the event is huge and logistically complicated. Also arcane, eccentric, and moody—a three-day celebration of angst. “The moral” of Closed Casket, she says, “is despair and folly....

In May, my Reader colleague Leor Galil took a long look at the surfeit of summer music festivals in Chicago. As he subsequently tweeted, folks here are often so eager for a reason to get outdoors when the weather’s warm that it seems like they’ll accept almost anything: “People want to be outside at an event, does it really matter what you put in front of them?” Circuit des Yeux Sat 7/21, 4-4:45 PM, Blue Stage...

When I wrote my B Side feature about bopping, the playful and infectious dance born on Chicago’s west side, Fake Shore Drive founder Andrew Barber told me the one thing that would likely make the dance movement a big hit on a national level is a song. Increasingly it’s looking like that tune could be Dlow’s “The Dlow Shuffle,” which is a musical manual that teaches you how to pull off the dude’s nimble moves....

Danny Lyon doesn’t want to talk about the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club. The legendary documentary photographer won’t say much about riding alongside Cal, Funny Sonny, Johnny, and the rest of the leather-clad gang in the 1960s, on an old Triumph cobbled together in a Hyde Park garage out of parts kept in coffee cans. He won’t go into great detail about the photos he took with his trusty Nikon: Benny, leaning back in the saddle, a silhouette lit up from streetlights and neon signs at Grand and Division; Big Barbara, with eyes you could get lost in, staring into a jukebox; or Andy, drinking Hamm’s longnecks off a pool table at the Stoplight bar in Cicero....

Thursday, August 31 Chicago Cultural Center GAR Rotunda 11 AM till 4:30 PM A Jazz Village featuring Chicago’s jazz community Claudia Cassidy Theater 11 AM The Evolution of Afro-Cuban Jazz: A Talk with Ignacio Berroa 12:15 PM Thaddeus Tukes Quintet 1:45 PM Tim Stine Trio 3:15 PM Dave Rempis Quintet performing Jackie McLean’s Action Randolph Square Noon Curtis Prince Band featuring Ari Brown 1:30 PM West End Jazz Band 3 PM Southport Records celebrates 40 years of Sparrow...

It’s not just the title. Down to the name of its central character—Rosemary Ward—Manny Tamayo’s one-act drama is evocative of the Ashley Judd, not-quite-horror thrillers that were ubiquitous in movie theaters in the late 90s, the type that later found everlasting life on cable networks like TNT. Widow to a notorious defense attorney for crime bosses, Ward (Allison Cain) faces down a gang of crooked cops who invade her Lincoln Park brownstone set on looting the cash fortune they believe her husband earned off their backs....

The polar vortex didn’t quite end my love of winter and snow, but it did more to damage my tendency to romanticize the season than waddling through blizzards ever did. Before Monday’s negative temperatures I enjoyed gazing out my bedroom window at night at the piles of snow glowing in the moonlight, but after the barrage of stories urging people to stay indoors the snow began to look more like a cage....

If Split-Rail opened for breakfast and lunch I could see hanging out there all day talking to myself about chicken McNuggets. This bright, airy, open, industrial space in Humboldt Park, bedecked with fox-hunt-themed banquettes and vintage cheesecake from legendary pinup artist Gil Elvgren, is the home of a new restaurant from former Ada Street chef Zoe Schor, who offers, on a oddly constructed menu, a bowl of five bronzed chicken nuggets at almost twice what you’d pay for a ten-piece under the Golden Arches....

Over much of the past decade, Swedish bassist Torbjörn Zetterberg has pulled me into his world time and time again. He ostensibly works within jazz, but that category feels inadequate to his creative curiosity and artistic empathy. He’s a strong player, but to my ears his writing, arranging, and concepts are even more formidable than his instrumental skills. He recently released two albums whose radically different approaches suggest his range....

Mayor Rahm Emanuel likes to brag that Chicago is one of the leading cities for protected bike lanes, with 22 miles installed to date. That figure helped us garner Bicycling magazine’s award for America’s best biking city last September. CDOT originally installed the Marshall lanes in November 2012. Previously Marshall had wide travel lanes plus parking on both sides of the street in most sections. But in defense of the lanes, Hamilton noted that the “road diet” (as narrowing or removing travel lanes is called) had dramatically reduced speeding on Marshall....