Almost two years ago a minor food media scandal erupted when a website called Snackpicks.com, owned by Kellogg’s, published a pair of recipes purportedly written by Grant Achatz. If “Chef Grant Achatz’s Ham and Curry Toppers” and “Chef Grant Actatz’ [sic] Sweet Potato Toppers”—snacks built on Keebler crackers—seemed beneath the talents of the creator of Black Truffle Explosion and Pheasant, Shallot, Cider, Burning Oak Leaves, matters were made even more ignoble when the site misspelled the chef’s name....

Richard A. Chapman / Sun-Times Media Republican Bruce Rauner addresses the congregation at New Beginnings Church of Chicago, whose pastor, Corey Brooks, has endorsed him. The latest twist in the increasingly strange, ugly race for governor came over the weekend, when south-side minister Corey Brooks said he received death threats, and his church was burglarized, after he appeared in TV commercials for Republican Bruce Rauner. Republicans don’t need to be reminded that they haven’t won an Illinois governor’s race in 16 years....

Since their first releases in the early 80s, southern California four-piece Redd Kross have been a cut above their punk peers. Started in 1980 by teenage brothers Jeff and Steven McDonald and rounded out over their first decade by a rotating cast of guitarists and drummers—including Black Flag members Ron Reyes and Dez Cadena and Circle Jerks founder Greg Hetson—the band added a sophisticated melodic sense to their feisty punk. By the early 90s, the brothers had grown into legitimate long-haired heartthrobs and were operating in a jangly, alt-rock realm, cranking out some minor hits while supporting acts like the Lemonheads and the Presidents of the United States of America before disbanding in 1997....

Skygreen Leopards 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.

The Secret History of Chicago Zines 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 plenty of shows, films, and concerts happening this week. Here’s some of what we recommend: Thu 9/13: Sketch show Black Boy Joy presents a refreshing depiction of young black men. Comics Devin Middleton and Jordan Stafford send up race without pulling punches. 8 PM, the Annoyance Theatre, 851 W. Belmont, 773-697-9693, theannoyance.com, $10.

Two of 2018’s biggest rap singles came out last year. “Mo Bamba,” a burbling, combustible anthem that Harlem rapper Sheck Wes made for his childhood friend, Orlando Magic center Mohamed Bamba, originally dropped in June 2017; earlier this month, the song reached number six on the Billboard Hot 100. “Lucid Dreams,” a corrosive heartbreak song that Chicagoland rapper Juice Wrld built on a tender guitar melody swiped from Sting’s “Shape of My Heart,” also debuted online in June 2017; in October it peaked at number two on the Hot 100....

When the National Public Housing Museum finally opens next year in a three-story brick building at 1322 W. Taylor—the last remnant of Chicago’s oldest federal housing project, the Jane Addams Homes—it will be the first cultural institution in the country devoted to chronicling and analyzing America’s attempts to house its people. Over the last 20 years, the idea for the museum has evolved into an ambitious plan that includes historic reconstructions of public housing apartments, a policy research center, and an entrepreneurial hub, along with programming that bridges social justice struggles past and present....

As budget speeches go, Mayor Emanuel’s recent address to the City Council was more or less true—with one glaring exception. The council was packed with people who had a hand or two in those debacles, starting with Alderman Ed Burke, who as finance chair steered every single bad deal, including the dreaded parking meter sale, through committee. No, he wasn’t in the City Council during the Daley years. And now that it’s pretty clear the courts won’t let him dictate pension cuts to the unions, we get the new Mayor Rahm, stepping forward to solemnly say it’s time we do the right thing and pay our bills....

The media have had a lot to say about the dismantling of the Obama legacy by the Trump administration and the Republican Congress. Either they can and will, or they’ll discover they can’t entirely but they can chainsaw it to bloody bits. Their first order of business seems to be to make the federal government they’re inheriting unrecognizable. In whatever way this grand plan proceeds, it’s already failed. Everything Trump has done so far as president-elect has only enhanced Obama’s legacy....

If you attempt to summarize a Rebecca Gilman play for someone who’s not already familiar with her work, you run the risk of sounding like you’re describing an after-school special or, possibly, an episode of Law and Order. A Gilman play usually features a group of strong-minded characters caught up in situations beyond their control, leading to serious moral dilemmas. So far her characters have dealt with racism (Spinning Into Butter), stalking (Boy Gets Girl), prostitution (Blue Surge), materialism and debt (Dollhouse), midcareer malaise (The Sweetest Swing in Baseball), and whether to have children (The Crowd You’re in With)....

“Green Porno” 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.

Few songwriters are able to revisit their past with as much poetic effectiveness as Rodney Crowell, a roots master who regularly reflects on his early days—whether growing up in Texas or arriving in Nashville as a songwriting greenhorn. He does it again on the terrific new album Close Ties (New West), his first new effort in three years and one that stands as tall as anything he’s done. Crowell’s rarely sounded more pensive....

Critics have compared Silence, Martin Scorsese’s latest drama, to his spiritually inclined The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and Kundun (1997). But another way of approaching Silence is in relation to Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street (2014). A cartoonish black comedy about real-life Wall Street swindler Jordan Belfort, Wolf amplified Scorsese’s filmmaking to the point of self-parody, especially with regard to the movie’s subjects: foulmouthed, macho lowlifes who tease each other, do drugs, treat women like garbage, and commit wanton acts of violence (in this case, financial)....

Ten years ago Phil Kadner gave a young colleague a piece of advice. Linda Lutton, then a reporter for the Daily Southtown, had the goods on a suburban school official who’d been stealing thousands of dollars from his district. Lutton was feeling triumphant—maybe even a little too excited for her own good. Kadner, the Southtown’s veteran news columnist, set her straight. A shelter for battered women in Palos Hills wanted to expand, but the neighbors wouldn’t have it....

Multi-instrumentalist Nate Garrett has been upfront in interviews about his struggles with alcoholism that underlie the painful, personal cry from the void that is the 2016 debut of Spirit Adrift, Chained to Oblivion. In those days, Spirit Adrift was a one-man band; Garrett meticulously created its heavy, bludgeoning sound layer by layer, summoning a haunting roar that sounds like it comes from a solitary monster who’s the last of his kind....

On the morning of inauguration day, I awoke to a cold, gloomy, lightly falling rain, and an alarming New York Times story concerning the man who would, in a matter of hours, become the 45th president of the United States. “The continuing counterintelligence investigation means that Mr. Trump will take the oath of office on Friday with his associates under investigation and after the intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government had worked to help elect him....

When dancer-choreographers Liz Burritt, Kristina Fluty, and Rebecca Salzer waded into the vast pool of Vivian Maier’s photographs, the pictures that held their attention were of women caught off guard, surprised yet staring defiantly into the lens. Inspired by these photos and the pejorative nickname neighborhood teens gave Maier thanks to her gawky gait, the dancers began to reinterpret Maier’s own image as an eccentric spinster as an allegory for the awkwardness of being seen publicly as a woman....

Koury Angelo Big Freedia 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.

Katherine Desjardins Lee Hyla On Saturday morning my Facebook feed began filling with posts expressing shock and grief at the passing of Lee Hyla, a brilliant composer and a professor at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music since 2007. I was a huge fan of his music, and I honored his album My Life on the Plains (Tzadik) in last year’s Best of Chicago issue. But I never met Lee and didn’t know too much about him, aside from the fact that he came to Northwestern from the New England Conservatory of Music....