Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Monday, June 26, 2017. Legal experts: It’s “no sure thing’”that Jason Van Dyke will be found guilty in Laquan McDonald case Former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke could be found not guilty with first-degree murder for the 2014 shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, legal experts told the Sun-Times. Police dash-cam video captured Van Dyke shooting unarmed McDonald to death with 16 shots....

ESPN’s broadcast of Tuesday’s play-in game between the Astros and the Yankees featured baseball analyst Jessica Mendoza, an Olympic softball player who in calling it became the first woman to announce a nationally televised playoff game. I didn’t watch, but my partner, Ted Cox, a longtime Reader sports columnist and Daily Herald media critic as well as a past member of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, has been impressed: “She knows her shit, and she’s super up on sabermetrics....

A few years ago, the food historian Bruce Kraig learned from his friend and colleague Andrew Smith that plans were under way for a food encyclopedia of New York City. The news bruised Kraig’s midwestern pride. “I thought, if those SOB New Yorkers can do one,” he says, “we can do one for Chicago!” The book itself was a logistical beast. Kraig had previously worked on the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and knew that the best way to start writing an encyclopedia was by making lists of notable food people, places, and events....

To see the difference between the Neo-Futurists’ Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, Greg Allen’s long-running hit that featured an exuberant, lyrically inclined ensemble scrambling to perform 30 original plays in 60 minutes, and the Neo-Futurists’ The Infinite Wrench, the replacement show that does the same stuff in the same theater in the same time slot, you have to squint awfully hard. Most importantly, the ingenuity and engagement of the work not only remains but has deepened....

We build our dreams by Andrei Rabodzeenko “Summer at LUMA” brings a trio of exhibitions featuring photography, watercolor, and multimedia works to the Loyola University Museum of Art, all on display through August 2. Many of the photographs feature commentary by staff and students of Loyola’s School of Social Work. Additionally, the exhibit contains a video documenting Renaldi’s process, enhancing viewers’ understanding and appreciation. “The exhibition causes us to reflect on the power of human touch and face-to-face interaction,” says Pamela E....

What do Solange’s A Seat at the Table, Frank Ocean’s Endless, and Kanye’s The Life of Pablo have in common? Well, besides being some of the most talked-about releases of 2016, they all feature golden vocal contributions from London singer, songwriter, and producer Sampha Sisay, better known as Sampha. (Kanye didn’t actually add the knockout “Saint Pablo” with Sampha till months after he first dropped Pablo, but I’m counting it all the same....

ARTIST: Scott Williams SHOW: Andy Noble, Dreas, and the Soul Summit DJs at Double Door on Sat 8/15 MORE INFO: scottwilliamsdesign.com

Rarely have I been so ticked off by an American horror feature as I was by It Comes at Night, an arty new film written and directed by Trey Edward Shults. Shults’s script is undercooked and his direction is needlessly mannered; moreover, neither the writing or the visual approach is interesting enough to transcend the familiarity of the story, about a middle-class family’s efforts to survive in a postapocalyptic United States....

In better times than these, I’ve wondered what would happen to American journalism if it lost the tattered protections—among them the First Amendment and patchwork of shield laws—that journalists in other countries never had in the first place. Now we might find out. Trump was scornful. “It’s all fake news,” he said, though he didn’t deny seeing such a report. Jim Acosta, the CNN reporter, tried to reply. A lot of journalists expect nothing good (except for a torrent of stories) to come to journalism from Trump and his nominee for attorney general, Jeff Sessions....

Since their formation in 1985 up to and following a hiatus that stretched between 1997 and 2004, Leeds-based indie-rock outfit the Wedding Present have consistently turned over lineups, with front man David Gedge taking on the role as the band’s sole founding and constant member. After spending the majority of his career crafting urgent and earnest rock music, Gedge set out to make September’s Going, Going . . . (released on his label Scopitones) an immersive multimedia experience and the Wedding Present’s most ambitious record to date—and he succeeded....

Dolce Italian arrived in Chicago this spring with the distinction of being the second incarnation of a Miami restaurant that was named the best new restaurant in America on a Bravo reality program called Best New Restaurant. (A more appropriate title might’ve been Best New Restaurant in America of the 16 We Convinced to Be on This Show, but that’s not terribly snappy.) I didn’t watch nor had I heard of BNR—my food-related reality-TV attention remains fixed on the real garbage like Mystery Diners and Bar Rescue—but from what I gather it differs from other competition shows of its ilk in that it takes into account every aspect of a restaurant’s operations, so not just the chef and her food, but the service, the management, and the overall dining experience....

In the Town of Night Vale, hooded figures, bizarre flashing lights, and appearances by angels are parts of daily life. And they’re all explained and hypothesized about on Welcome to Night Vale, the otherworldly podcast narrated by Cecil Baldwin. Throughout, Baldwin provides updates on the conditions of the fictional southwestern desert town, including messages from secret police and gentle reminders like, “Remember: if you see something, say nothing, and drink to forget....

In order to keep his coalition of Republican legislators together, Governor Bruce Rauner’s apparently decided to betray his lifelong commitment to reproductive rights and throw the women of Illinois under a bus. The 1975 bill starts by stating its “intention” to “reasonably regulate abortion . . . without in any way restricting . . . the right of a woman to an abortion.” The law could even result in doctors who perform abortions getting prosecuted for murder....

wikipedia RIP former Chicagoan Frank M. Robinson, who died yesterday at age 87.

Chicago proto-industrial duo Hogg use electronics, guitar, bass, and their own distorted voices to create burning beds of skronk ‘n’ awe—this wolf thinks their 2015 tape, Bury the Dog Deeper (via Andy Ortmann‘s Nihilist Records), was one of the year’s most unsettling local listens. On Saturday, January 16, Rotted Tooth Recordings releases an expanded, retitled LP version, Carnal Lust & Carnivorous Eating, that includes two new tracks. That night Hogg play at a local underground venue with noise punks Running, who are approaching the show with the same panache that earned them a Reader nod for “Best Album Packaging” in 2012—bassist Matthew Hord promises plastic palm trees, frozen tropical drinks, and reggae goth DJs!...

The summer before sixth grade, I used to play dead in pools. I waded into the shallow end, and then I fell forward, and then I’d hang, sagging toward the bottom. The sun warmed my neck around my ponytail, and I’d squint through the chlorine sting toward the bottom. Pebbled. Rough. On a curve I couldn’t trace, either up or down. Isaiah looked blurry through the chlorine film. “I thought—” he said....

Three Crows Theatre has made a name for itself performing plays based on true stories, and this one hits close to home. Melanie Marnich’s one-act, directed by Kristin Davis, details the radioactive history of the “Radium Girls” of Ottawa, Illinois. Painting the dials of the watches and clocks at the Radium Dial Company was a coveted job for women in the 1920s: it paid eight cents per watch, and a worker could complete more than 100 per day....

Brown Bear, Brown Bear and Other Treasured Stories For decades, starting in the late 1960s, Eric Carle used a distinctive collage technique to illustrate his books for young children, including the three staged here by the Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia: The Very Hungry Caterpillar; Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?; and Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me. Director/production designer Jim Morrow has done an impeccable job of expressing Carle’s aesthetic with puppets....

VENUE All films reviewed here, except for Miss Julie, screen at River East 21, 322 E. Illinois. A half century of CIFF milestones, from Scorsese’s debut to Lee Daniels’s achievement award Read our reviews of 15 revival films screening at CIFF. Read our reviews of CIFF week one. Film festivals are usually front-loaded, with all the best stuff at the beginning. But the “best stuff” isn’t always the best stuff—it’s just the stuff with the biggest names and the loudest buzz....