For Chicago sports fans who pay just a visit or two to Wrigley each season—usually thanks to the good fortune of free tickets—or swivel a bar stool away from a plate of nachos only after they hear a collective “Hurrah!” hurled at a wall of TVs, the two weeks from October 18 through October 31 are a welcome distraction from a slow descent into cold and darkness. They brim with camaraderie between fellow Chicagoans....
Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus are three singer-songwriters who have each made an impact in the music world in just the past couple of years, particularly with their recent solo releases Turn Out the Lights, Stranger in the Alps, and Historian, respectively. While Baker’s instrumentals—usually sparse figures on a chordal instrument—are mellow and minimal, her voice is a powerful force that often transforms into a melodic yell. Bridgers’s music is similar in that it is also an ethereal assortment of mollified, simple layers, but her lyrics are typically more narrative than Baker’s....
QMy wife and I went through a long-distance period when we were still dating and she went away to school. I used porn as a masturbatory aid during that time. I did not tell her this, as she believes that porn use is equivalent to cheating. Well, fast-forward a couple years (and a marriage), and I let it slip that I had watched some porn during the times we were apart....
Mike Sula Horchata, El Habanero Given the ubiquity of horchata, the cooling, milky, rice-based agua fresca that has no peer when it comes to extinguishing capsaicin-ignited fires, you’d think that you’d see more variation from the frequently chalky, oversweetened concentrates that circulate through JetSprays in taquerias all over the city. There are plenty of ways to make it—with Spanish tiger nuts or cantaloupe seeds, ground almonds or sesame—but I’d settle for one made from scratch....
If there’s a more prolific or consistent Nashville songwriter than Jim Lauderdale, I couldn’t tell you who it is. He’s written tunes for lots of famous singers—George Strait, Patty Loveless, Blake Shelton, Lee Ann Womack, Gary Allan—but he’s also a terrific performer himself. Throughout the 90s he bounced among numerous major labels with little commercial success, but since turning to indies—and lately his own Sky Crunch imprint—he’s been releasing music under his own name as prolifically as he’s been writing it for other people....
Coates understands much of the backlash embodied by Trump and his white nationalists allies as a direct and logical response to a black presidency—and one not without ample historical precedent. Elsewhere in the world he observes various right-wing movements and Brexit as similar responses to nonwhite people gaining more of a foothold in traditionally white-dominated societies. To Coates, Obama’s ascension didn’t signal the arrival of equality but confirmed that “it was always the case that individually gifted and lucky African-Americans could go far,” he explained....
Matthew Hoffman is a big believer in the power of positive thinking. His text-based work seems to inhabit a category that could be called “affirmational art.” The 35-year-old Chicagoan is the savvy sloganeer behind You Are Beautiful, which began modestly 12 years ago with a packet of 100 stickers and has since grown into an art-world phenomenon; the iconic silver rectangles with black letters have been stuck to walls worldwide, inspiring exhibitions and public installations dedicated to those three impactful words....
With proof recently surfacing that Richard Nixon was secretly plotting with South Vietnam to undercut his opponent in the 1968 presidential election, I realized that I’ve now lived through three acts of alleged electoral sabotage by foreign countries conniving with Republicans. And, of course, there’s the most recent case where Russian hackers, who may have been under the command of President Vladimir Putin, allegedly tapped into Democratic National Committee computers this summer and released embarrassing e-mails that undercut Hillary Clinton’s campaign....
Tommy’s life is a mess and so are his digs. He occupies what was probably once a garden room in the Dublin home of his old Uncle Maurice, who took over his upbringing when Tommy was a boy and is back at it now that Tommy’s a middle-aged divorced man on the skids. As rendered by set designer Todd Rosenthal, Tommy’s bit of the house is connected to the rest by French doors; it’s got its own outdoor entrance, a bank of tall windows, and a little sink of the sort that you might imagine Maurice’s dead wife, Maura, using to wash potting soil from her hands....
The 54th annual University of Chicago Folk Festival comes to the school’s Mandel Hall and Ida Noyes Hall this weekend with three days of live music, workshops, lessons, dances, folk jams, storytelling sessions, and more. The concerts, which take place in Mandel Hall, are on the nights of Fri 2/14, Sat 2/15, and Sun 2/16. Of the eight acts, most play two sets at two different shows; the best-known names include ten-time Grammy-winning bluegrass fiddler Bobby Hicks, who performs on Friday and Saturday nights, and “old-time supergroup” Bigfoot, which appears Saturday and Sunday....
In early December the folks behind Uncanned Music—which over the last few years has programmed jazz and improvised music concerts and DJ sets at loads of venues around town, including the Bedford, Trencherman, Plein Air Cafe, Bar DeVille, and Sportsman’s Club, among others—will release Alternate Moon Cycles by cornetist Rob Mazurek, the first title on its newly formed International Anthem label. The show promoters have been actively recording most of the concerts they’ve presented recently, and now they’re putting that music out there....
Since trumpeter Russ Johnson moved to Milwaukee in 2011—and thanks to his comfort with the 90-minute commute to Chicago—the local jazz and improvised music scene has been injected with a brash yet thoughtful presence and an aesthetic that connects postbop fundamentals with freedom-seeking impulses. Another benefit has been Johnson’s vast network of collaborators from New York, as quite a few top-notch figures have traveled to the midwest to work with him....
Last week I went to Lost Lake for the House of Angostura’s U.S. Cocktail Challenge Chicago regionals—a competition to determine who advances to the U.S. finals in New Orleans next week at Tales of the Cocktail. “Regional” appears to be a relative term: while one of the bartenders was a Chicagoan, the others hailed from Nevada, Wyoming, and Washington state, respectively. I’ll admit to rooting for the Chicago bartender—Elizabeth Mickiewicz, who works at Drumbar—but it wasn’t hometown bias that made me prefer her cocktail to the others....
Local rapper Dan Kanvis released his debut album, Windows, six months ago, and he’s already back with an EP called Parallel. This release is three short tracks, and Kanvis uses his time on each song wisely: he delivers words with sparse clarity, and the placid production cast his assured vocals in a cool light. Kanvis hits his stride on “Watch My Feet,” feeding off the watery synths, hand-drum percussion, and fluid, funky bass line for a tender tune about getting lost in the moment....
A massive lizard carries a city on its back. A paunchy adventurer fashions two chainsaws and a kendo stick into a two-pronged zombie-slaughtering weapon. A monster pig with ninja skills seeks revenge for the consumption of his family. Such scenes exude a gleeful intricacy and lust for detail that set Darrow apart from other comics artists. On a more mechanical level, Darrow’s time as an animator for Hanna-Barbera was instructive, if not fun....
Matt Braunger is the ultimate living-room comic. His live shows are like sitting around on a lazy afternoon cracking jokes, telling tales, and drinking beer. Braunger’s real strength, though, is his long-form storytelling, which is demonstrated in the closing tracks on Shovel Fighter. “A Ghost at the Two Man Party” is as horrifying as it is hilarious, and “Clown Pub Crawl” is almost too crazy to be true. Both are legendary....
Almost a year ago I was wandering around the halls of the Sofitel Hotel with executive chef Greg Biggers as he took me through Illinois’ first certified aged-cheesemaking restaurant for this Reader story. The gist of it was that Biggers had pushed the hotel to start making its own cheeses, cured meats, jams, and pickles under the name Chestnut Provisions, which required a wide range of city and state certifications—including the only cheese-making certification given to a restaurant in the state, the same kind of certification normally given to giant dairy plants cranking out the American cheese slices and mozzarella sticks....
A movie can be absorbing or significant because of its craft, its ambitions, or what its appearance at a certain point in time may augur, even if it doesn’t fully cohere or completely satisfy. Call it a mixed bag, a near miss, or a guilty pleasure, but sometimes the flaws throw into greater relief the qualities that make a film striking. Life Itself is writer-director Dan Fogelman’s second indie feature, following the Al Pacino vehicle Danny Collins (2015), which had its admirers but was a box office disappointment....
Kristina Skums The organizers of Fed Up Fest are exactly that. New York punk band Aye Nako are excited to return to Chicago for the fest. Lead guitarist and vocalist Mars Dixon says they felt had to play Fed Up Fest because it’s part of their scene—all the band’s members are either queer or transgender. “I feel like I never really fit in with the general punk scene, just for being superqueer and not being a white person,” says Dixon....
Deanna Isaacs Vivian Maier photos at Art Center Highland Park When I talked with photographer and Northwestern University faculty member Pamela Bannos for a column earlier this spring about posthumously famous local photographer Vivian Maier, Bannos told me something surprising: that Maier’s best work may have already been behind her when she moved to Chicago in the mid-1950s. Clocks, newspapers, mirrors, cars, and kids appear frequently in the suburban photos—the children falling into handsome patterns as they skip rocks on Lake Michigan, cluster around a lemonade stand, or help dad wash a gloriously finned midcentury auto....
