Q: I’m a middle-aged homo trying to figure out Grindr. Is it impolite to go on Grindr if you’re not looking for an immediate hookup? My preferred form of sexual relationship is the friend-with-benefits situation. I go on Grindr looking to make friends who could, at least potentially, be sex partners, but I like to do the friend thing before the sex. I’ve had guys call me an asshole because I exchanged messages with them for 20 minutes and then didn’t come right over and fuck them....

When David Catlin’s bold, captivating version of Moby-Dick debuted at Lookingglass Theatre in 2015, it was praised by then Reader critic Zac Thompson as a “dazzling” spectacle. After its wildly successful local run came a national tour. Now the production’s back in Chicago, in all its acrobatic glory, and having seen it twice, I can safely say that for sheer visual splendor, breathtaking design, and epic storytelling, there’s nothing to rival it now or in recent memory....

In 2010 Gossip Wolf reported on a forthcoming album called One in Two Parts by local industrial-metal duo Plague Bringer—and fans of the band’s turgid, squalling blasts are still waiting for it! Last week on Bandcamp, Plague Bringer dropped “A Dismal Creep,” the first new track since 2013 of their distinctive “cyber-grind” (to quote the Reader‘s Luca Cimarusti). Guitarist Greg Ratajczak promises he’s “going to finish this 90-­minute two-disc set sometime in 2016” and that he “hopes to include a personal musical hero on guest vocals....

If Gerry Hemingway had retired from music in 1994, at the end of his 11-year-long tenure as the drummer with Anthony Braxton’s quartet, he would have been assured a lasting place in the annals of jazz and improvised music. But his contributions to that combo—which used its preternatural rapport to realize Braxton’s concept of superimposing and alternating between multiple compositions in real time—turned out to be an early chapter in a long career that has encompassed diligent explorations of lyrically expressive jazz, rigorously cohesive free improvisation, and empathetic pairings of his acoustic percussion and electronic sounds with theatrical and video works....

Miriam Doan US Air Guitar Semi-Finals 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.

Gun violence in Chicago is basically a disease Honey Butter Fried Chicken puts “sanctuary” on the menu Ouch! Man says River North bedbugs tried to “eat him alive” Four Danish ideas for making Chicago winter more tolerable

It had been over ten years since I’d visited this institution devoted to celebrating and promoting Afro-Latin arts and culture in Chicago. So when I wandered into the Hermosa space to vote last month at an ungodly early hour and was immediately greeted by live music and center volunteers there just to hang out, I was delighted to be flooded with memories of visits to a previous location during my first days in the city nearly three decades back....

It’s hard at this point to even imagine a world without television and film. Instead of viewing parties for Breaking Bad or a Star Wars marathon, families and friends gathered around an old-timey radio waiting to hear the thrilling conclusion to the soap opera Clara, Lu, and Em or the latest headlines on NBC (pre-peacock). But this weekend the local audio-storytelling organization hosts the Third Coast Festival’s Filmless Festival—the “Sundance for radio” according to Third Coast founder Johanna Zorn—to prove that the days of communal audio experiences are far from over....

In the last hours of your life, the Memori people came to sit with me at Weiss. I watched a machine breathe for you while they told me my options. They offered the memorial biotattoo, the voicebox-hologram combo. I wanted everything, every scrap of you that I could keep, but I couldn’t pay for any of it. I stopped listening when they launched into down payments and interest rates. You can have her dreams, they said....

It happened in the store before I got there. Paul was cleaning already and badgered me until I gave up my smoke break and clocked in early too. The man was a regular, weekly refill of his toilet paper, applesauce, rye bread. Fell into an end cap of cans. A pyramid of corn and beans busted onto the floor and rolled into produce. “They called it a ‘widowmaker,’” Paul said, “but they said his wife died last year, right?...

This Sunday the pop-up dining series Hungry as F*ck will take over Kimski—a Bridgeport restaurant that normally serves Korean-Polish street food—for its Hawaiian-inspired Ono Brunch. Organizers Amy Lecza and Kelly Ijichi are creating takes on Hawaiian classics that include butter mochi, kalua pork, lomi-lomi salmon, and ube pancakes. It’s their third event, but the first that isn’t ticketed, which opens it up to a wider audience. “Anyone off the street, anyone that typically goes to Kimski for brunch will see us and eat our food,” Ijichi says....

Remember Soto? He slugged his way to a deserving National League Rookie of the Year award for the north siders a few months after Cox wrote the piece, but quickly declined afterwards. His next season embodied the sophomore slump—he posted a disappointing .218 average and 47 RBIs, and made headlines for testing positive for marijuana at the World Baseball Classic.

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago.

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago.

Last night’s Democratic presidential debate viewing party at Happy Village wasn’t very partylike. About 100 people—mostly fervent Bernie Sanders supporters—gathered to spend a couple hours watching the candidates express their points of view on TV, but the noise in the cozy East Village pub rarely rose above murmuring-at-a-book-club level. Slices of pizza were consumed, the Tamale Guy popped in for a visit, and a handful of pointed remarks from Sanders and Clinton earned mild whoops, but otherwise it felt only slightly more exciting than watching a WWII documentary in a library....

“When I made my first pair of shoes, it was strenuous. You had to hammer, and you’re tired after that,” says Alexandria Wills. “But then you put them on. They fit and they look great.” Wills was hooked and wanted to salvage what she considers a lost art. After two years, Wills packed her belongings into a mini school bus and moved back to Chicago. “I realized that if I wanted to grow my business I needed a more affordable place,” she says....

The taxi industry continues spinning its wheels while Uber braces for world domination. I asked Macdonald whether the state legislation—if it’s ever signed by Governor Quinn—might hamper his projections. They’ll worry about that when the time comes.

In our gluten-averse society, a gluten-free grain that’s virtually unknown sounds all but impossible. Job’s tears, which have been consumed for centuries across Asia, are technically not a grain (the plant is part of the grass family), but that didn’t stop Bon Appetit from declaring them “the next cult gluten-free grain” last year. In the case of the wild strain, Job’s tears are often dried and used as beads, while the softer domesticated version can be steamed like rice, ground into flour, boiled to make tea, and brewed into beer....

Part of my job as a critic is to watch myself watch things. During the world premiere of Antoinette Nwandu’s Pass Over at Steppenwolf Theatre, I watched myself squirm. Though, as the play’s title suggests, the more appropriate religious reference is Old Testament rather than New. Before she’s done, Nwandu’s absurdist pastiche has mutated into a latter-day reenactment of the exodus-from-Egypt story, and from there into pure protest: guerrilla-theater reductive (there are no exceptions made for “good” whites), but also guerrilla-theater powerful....