Rich Hein / Sun-Times Media The former campus of Michael Reese Hospital, shown in 2009, the year the city bought the property. The bill—up to $91 million—is now coming due. Yesterday was a banner day in the city’s effort to waste more property tax dollars on dreadful tax increment financing deals. Instead, I learned about the payment in an article by Micah Maidenberg, a real estate reporter for Crain’s Chicago Business....
Vanessa Paradis and John Turturro in Fading Gigolo One thing I’ve noticed about the response to John Turturro’s Fading Gigolo, which ends its run at the Landmark Century tomorrow, is that people who don’t like it really don’t like it. The anti-Gigolo crowd seem downright appalled by the film’s sentimental view of prostitution, and I’ve heard at least one viewer decry as chauvinistic fantasy the premise of rich and beautiful women paying Turturro’s middle-aged shlemazel for sex....
Courtesy Chicago Public Library Helen Prejean 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.
Like Magic Mike XXL, Sean Baker’s Tangerine (currently playing at the Music Box Theatre) invokes American movies from the pretelevision era. The story is relatively inconsequential—an LA prostitute tracks down and confronts her two-timing lover and the woman with whom he was cheating on her—and the filmmakers don’t try to make it seem otherwise. They emphasize personality over plot, inviting viewers to bask in the star power of the lead performers (both of them larger-than-life personalities) and simply enjoy their company for an hour and a half....
Bernie Sanders growled while delivering the keynote speech at last weekend’s People Summit in Chicago: “Part of the problem is . . . nobody wants to hurt each other anymore.” Many pundits on the right jumped at the chance to punch left. From the American Spectator: Just four days before Hodgkinson’s attempt at a Franz Ferdinand-style kickoff to the revolution he suspected Sanders was asking for, the wild-haired semi-reformed Soviet sympathizer appeared at something called the People’s Summit in Chicago, delivering a broadside of calumnies and bromides so vicious as to sit right at home at a microphone in Caracas or Pyongyang or Havana....
The timing of the pre-Broadway world premiere of Tootsie, days after the Brett Kavanaugh hearing, is unfortunate. The play itself is interesting, cheeky, and all kinds of complicated. Directed by Tony veteran Scott Ellis, with book and score by Robert Horn and David Yazbek, respectively, this loose adaptation of the classic 1982 comedy brings everything to the present day except the main character Michael’s iconic drag costume. In the role made famous by Dustin Hoffman—who’s currently embroiled in #MeToo harassment allegations—Santino Fontana initially plays the character of Michael Dorsey as a narcissistic jerk whose pursuit of “truth” has alienated everyone on Broadway....
Q: I’m a woman in my late 40s. In my early 20s, I married a much older man. We did all the requisite things: kids, house, intercourse once a week. When the sex fell off due to his declining health, he surprised me by suggesting we open our marriage. He said I was too young to be limited and he didn’t want me to leave him for sex. I spent time contemplating how to truly fulfill my desires....
AP Photo/Sun-Times Media Guess who There are a few coincidental reasons for making Bob Dylan’s “Quinn the Eskimo” today’s 12 O’Clock Track. For one, today marks the release of The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete, a six-disc box set containing the entirety of Dylan and the Band’s famous basement sessions recorded in 1967, during which they all produced the first known recording of “Quinn.” Then there’s Dylan’s three-show run in Chicago, beginning this Saturday (November 8) at the Cadillac Palace Theatre....
Almost Famous 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.
Some of the music I write about in this space each Friday pushes well beyond what the average person might consider jazz, and there are times when I wouldn’t even try to make the argument myself. But jazz and its influence—via the practice of improvisation—has radiated widely, so that all kinds of sounds could theoretically boast some type of connection. When jazz first emerged in a century ago, the term often had nothing to do with improvisation but instead signified hot dance music, first in New Orleans and then in cities like Chicago and New York....
Courtesy of Mick Jenkins’s Facebook page Mick Jenkins On “THC,” the second song on Mick Jenkins’s brand-new The Water[s], the south-side rapper dissects his inspired mixtape concept: “Water is the most important natural component we have today. It makes up our world, our bodies. It has the ability to destroy and create. It is the healing component, THC.” Jenkins provides much of the reason for keeping The Water[s] on repeat....
Mezcal and other agave distillates (sotol, raicilla, bacanora) are becoming ever more prevalent. Forget about smoke and worms: it’s easy to become lost in the universe of these spirits’ unique flavor profiles and aromas, and in the different terroirs, plants, artisanal production methods, and personal stories behind the bottles. There’s plenty of industrial-grade mezcal on the market, but when it comes to the myriad of small-batch maestros whose distillates are making it north of the border in increasing volumes, you really need someone who’s been steeped in the spirit world to guide you....
The Tomorrow Never Knows festival has taken over a growing number of north-side venues every January for ten years now, bringing with it a wide variety of live music and (since 2012) comedy. The fest comes back bigger every time, and for 2014 it includes 22 shows in five days at Lincoln Hall, Schubas, Metro, Smart Bar, the Hideout, and the Athenaeum Theatre. Saturday’s big names are English soul-pop singer John Newman at Lincoln Hall with vocal duo Lady; baroque-pop ensemble San Fermin at Schubas on a four-act bill with local fingerstyle guitarist Ryley Walker, among others; veteran indie rockers Superchunk at Metro with Roomrunner and Split Single, and Hugo Ball at Smart Bar....
For most of the world, the calendar starts in January. But in Chicago, the New Year apparently began on November 24, when Mayor Emanuel finally released the video showing police officer Jason Van Dyke gunning down Laquan McDonald. That’s because Cook County Board president Toni Preckwinkle—who had been crushing Mayor Rahm in the polls—chickened out and didn’t run. Not knowing what else to do, many Chicagoans went back to sleep....
As part of my ongoing effort to introduce you to some of the candidates running for mayor—you’ll thank me for this later, Chicago—I was at Wallace’s Catfish Corner talking politics with Robert Shaw one afternoon last week. “I’m going to tell you something,” Shaw responded. “I don’t think she’s running. I can’t say that Shaw’s conspiracy theories involving Preckwinkle and Emanuel are true, but I must admit that he probably knows more about Chicago politics than any man or woman in this race, including the mayor....
Every summer Wicker Park nonprofit writing and tutoring center 826 Chicago hosts a music-writing workshop centered around the Pitchfork Music Festival called “The Rest Is Noise.” I was lucky enough to serve as one of the volunteers for this year’s workshop, and I got to tag along with a couple groups of thoughtful teenage journalists as they explored the festival, took in some sets, and interviewed musicians. Contributing Reader videographer Chris Buddy joined us and captured the students as they spoke with some of the performers....
Thom Clark You should be hanging out with these guys on election night. I’d like to take this opportunity to quash a vicious rumor regarding my partner in crime—Mr. Mick Dumke—and our upcoming election-night extravaganza at the Hideout. And if that’s not enough . . . He’s also an ally of Mayor Rahm. He and I will try our hardest not to argue too much about that. Speaking of CAN TV, they’ll be broadcasting live so, if you’re too lazy to get over to the Hideout, you can watch from the comfort of your own home....
Don’t let the name fool you—the Dead South are actually from the far north. Regina, Saskatchewan, to be exact. Over the course of three albums of hardscrabble folk and bluegrass the group have built up a following through the most modern of methods, including viral videos like “Banjo Odyssey,” which follows them as they literally bring on their show on the road, serenading Toronto from the bed of a moving truck....
ARTIST: Francisco Ramirez SHOWS: Apocalypse Hoboken reunions at Chop Shop on 7/13, 7/14, and 7/15 MORE INFO: bureauprintresearchdesign.com
Lincoln Square’s desperate dearth of quality cocktails will come to an end sometime in the late fall, when the Fifty/50 Group and crack barkeep Benjamin Schiller open the Sixth, a bar adjacent to a second iteration of their Quad Cities-style pizza joint Roots. Schiller promises seven to nine house cocktails at $10-$12 apiece and a deep American whiskey collection with a special focus on bottles from defunct distilleries. “I’ve noticed a sort of ‘Aw shucks—we’re just a shot-and-a-beer joint’ approach in bartending of late,” he says....
