In the early aughts, David Buss, a professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, asked 5,000 average, presumably nonhomicidal people if they’d ever vividly fantasized about murdering anyone. The test subjects overwhelmingly answered positively. When Buss went on to ask about the circumstances that had provoked the thoughts, nearly none resulted from having been physically harmed or threatened by the object of the murderous fantasy. More often, the daydreams were rooted in the scariest thing of all: humiliation....

Mark Haddon’s 2003 smash-hit young adult novel was a notable staple on bookstore best-seller tables throughout the aughts for a handful of reasons, not the least of which was its stark brevity. First, the atmospheric kind: using the unadorned first-person voice of Christopher, a 15-year-old boy presumed to be on the autism spectrum, Curious Incident unravels a domestic whodunnit from an unsentimental—yet often heart-wrenching—point of view. And second, the literal kind: the book can easily be read in one or two sittings....

Rahm Emanuel ducked out of City Hall alone on Tuesday afternoon, his usual security detail walking slightly ahead of him. The calm, matter-of-fact way that Rahm’s rule is coming to an ending is shocking—particularly so if you compare it to the mood of eight years ago. In 2010, Obama’s former chief of staff returned to Chicago from the White House poised as a conquering hero ready to assume his rightful place on the throne....

Mike Sula Medio pollo, Piko Riko Each morning, at around nine or ten, the atmosphere on the blocks surrounding the intersection of Montrose and Troy in Albany Park is saturated with the narcotic aroma of roasting chicken. If you happen to pass by the esteemed Colombian restaurant Brasa Roja, you can see for yourself the formations of bronzed chickens spinning over the smoldering coals in the front window. It’s a Pavlovian stimulus nearly as compelling as the invisible cocoa clouds that spew from the Blommer Chocolate factory, but it’s not even the best pollo a la brasa in the neighborhood (see: D’Candela)....

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

Even if you’ve never seen a Wes Anderson movie, you’ve probably seen the American Express commercial he made in 2004, which was ubiquitous on American TV: between takes on a movie set the hip young director marches around giving instructions to his actors, noting the makeup job on a geisha character, conferring with his prop man on a suitable weapon for a scene (“Can you do a .357 with a bayonet?...

For certain species of north-siders, suburbanites, and tourists, Chinatown might as well be in China. The reasons are manifold. The very idea of navigating the Land Rover around the south side is out of the question. Didn’t someone say someone found bedbugs on the Red Line? Why spend money on an Uber when you could drop it on that sweet Tilted Kilt wife-beater? OK, I don’t know if that last part is true about Ben Ruiz, but I do know he’s been the chef at Bar Marta for a while....

Jammy New York band Woods aren’t any sort of a political combo, but that doesn’t mean the members don’t feel the overwhelming weight of last year’s election. In preparing to make their latest album, Love Is Love (Woodist), they made the deliberate choice to respond by embracing the titular emotion rather than the rage that enveloped so many of us. In a liner-note essay for the new record, music journalist Sam Hockley-Smith wrote, “There will be parts of life where we will watch as events unfold and we will feel helpless....

The chants and slogans from the crowd of what appeared to be more than 100 white protesters who gathered outside Branch Community Church in northwest-side Jefferson Park February 9 to oppose a proposed affordable housing development felt eerily reminiscent of the 1960s. But opponents weren’t having it. Nor is this the first time one of Full Circle’s developments has been met with vehement neighborhood opposition by northwest-side residents who seem to conceive of affordable housing as something meant for people unlike themselves....

Julia Thiel The limes are purely decorative. I’ve been reading a lot about Campari drinks lately, which is a little odd since I don’t really enjoy the flavor of Campari. But I recently tried it in a ginger liqueur cocktail and enjoyed it, plus I have a big bottle of it at home (I bought it to make punch and then ended up going with a different recipe than I’d planned on)....

COURTESY STANDUPPLANET.ORG Nate Bargatze 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.

My favorite new commercial release out now, the dialogue-free claymation Shaun the Sheep Movie, is a loving tribute to the work of Buster Keaton, trading in meticulously staged sight gags and deadpan reaction shots. The soundtrack is largely subservient to the images—writer-directors Mark Burton and Richard Starzak use noises merely to punctuate the visual humor. This strategy makes for a nice change of pace from all the dumb one-liners that routinely clog up children’s animations; more importantly, it provides a welcome reminder that movies don’t need words....

QI’m a straight female who was a dominatrix for a while—and out of all the jobs I’ve had, I loved it the most. Working as a secretary—one with a master’s in writing—wasn’t that hard to beat, I guess. But professional dommes aren’t immune to workplace romances, and I fell in love with a client. Long story short, we are still together after a year and a half, after I closed my practice and sold (most of) my toys because he didn’t want to be with a woman who was still practicing this kind of physical intimacy with others....

Mike Sula Mariano’s oyster bar lunch special (for two) I’m in danger of becoming a champion of mega grocery chain Mariano’s, if only for the quality of the prepared food stalls in the new Ravenswood store. I’ve already professed my strong like for the barbecue, a damn sight better than the majority of new independent restaurants purporting to smoke meat. I certainly didn’t expect to vouch for the raw bar, especially after an early unfortunate encounter with a single spermy bivalve....

A first-person account from off the beaten track, as told to Anne Ford. “I feel fundamentally interested in our experience of place. Everyone has had that satisfying moment of listening to a song you love, and the chorus hits right when you turn the corner and see the city skyline. I got interested in what it would mean to create something that constantly gave you those moments. We do these fantastically boring things every day like commute, and I feel interested in what we can do to reenchant them....

In case the name “Couch Slut” is somehow too nuanced to convey to you just how grim and confrontational this Brooklyn noise-rock foursome can be, their sophomore full-length, Contempt (Gilead Media), sounds like getting your fingers slammed in the hatch of a tank or your bare toes gnarled under a bundle of bricks dropped from three stories up. That help? Right from the opening track, “Funeral Dyke,” the record doesn’t care a whit for subtlety....

Looking for stuff to do this weekend? Here are some highlights: Sat 12/19: Pilsen Outpost (1958 W. 21st) hosts CMYCake, a pop-up showcase of comics, zines, and crafts by the likes of Kevin Budnik, Zelda Galewsky, and Javier Suárez, with pastries from Rendezvous: A Community Confectionary. 3-10 PM

Estevan Oriol Kelis 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.