Courtesy David Beltran Starfoxxx 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.
Back in 2001, when Laura Weathered was struggling through construction on the Acme Artists’ Community housing development, there was a lot of talk about protecting artists from the gentrification that dogged them. The city contributed $200,000 to the $3.2 million rehab project, and buyers were able to get additional subsidies of up to $30,000 (in the form of loans that would be forgiven across a ten-year period) for each unit. Artists with as little as $3,000 for a down payment were able to purchase the condominiums, which were priced from $90,000 to $130,000....
This week we review four films from the Polish Film Festival in America, which opens this Friday and runs through Sunday, November 22, at Facets Cinematheque, Society for Arts, and Rosemont 18 out in the ‘burbs. And check out our new reviews of: Barista, a documentary about coffee and the overcaffeinated young people who prepare it; Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation, the annual three-day blowout of abstract and experimental work; I Smile Back, starring Sarah Silverman as a suburban wife and mother who can’t get enough booze and drugs; Love, an erotic epic (in 3-D, no less) by French bad boy Gaspar Noe (I Stand Alone); Radical Grace, a locally produced documentary about progressive nuns clashing with the Vatican; Spectre, the latest James Bond adventure; and Victoria, a suspense movie shot in one extended take....
“David Bowie Is” is coming to the Museum of Contemporary Art on September 23, and nothing else happening in Chicago this fall matters. All Bowie, in all his multivarious forms, in sight, sound, theater, and dance, plus Bryan Ferry and Todd Haynes and Sandy Powell (though not, alas, the corporeal Bowie himself)—and it’s coming here, and only here, so take that, New York and LA. But enough looking back: jazz bassist and composer Matt Ulery, playwright Lucas Hnath, and novelist Lindsay Hunter all have new work....
Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, February 22, 2017. City Council to vote on proposed downtown street performance crackdown Wednesday The City Council will vote on a proposed crackdown on street performers downtown Wednesday. The proposal from 42nd Ward alderman Brendan Reilly would ban any outside performances that can be heard from more than 20 feet away. The regulation would only apply to downtown areas from “Michigan Avenue between Cedar Street and Balbo Avenue, and on State Street between Huron Street and Jackson Boulevard,” according to WBEZ, and would take aim at performances from tourist magnet groups like the Bucket Boys, which can sometimes be an annoyance to downtown residents and office workers....
You may be wondering: What’s my ward? What’s my precinct? WHAT’S A PRECINCT? Chicago’s 50 wards are gerrymandered into completely illogical geographies, and there’s nothing wrong with not knowing. Each ward is subdivided into precincts. To vote early after October 21, or to vote on Election Day, figure out your ward and precinct with this handy tool from the Chicago Board of Elections. Almost every judicial candidate and sitting judge is rated by one of the local bar associations, and you can find more information about those evaluations here....
Netflix Wyatt Cenac lives and stands up in Brooklyn. The Netflix special Wyatt Cenac: Brooklyn is all about the comedian’s Brooklyn, from its intimate venues (including Union Hall, where the show was filmed) to its gentrified enclaves. The borough is also the backdrop for musings on Cenac’s personal shortcomings. He combines biting bits about past and present Brooklynites with “why I’m still single” lines and delivers a performance that’s more observational than political, and hilarious overall....
“We are unstoppable,” Lianne La Havas sings on the first track from her second album, Blood (Warner Bros.). So far she’s done nothing but prove herself right. The UK singer-songwriter and Prince protege has toured through Europe since Blood‘s release at the end of July, and now she’s about to jog through North America. Live, she backs up her impeccably smooth voice by alternately playing guitar and bass; her band deftly fleshes out the full, rich sound of her studio arrangements....
Carly Hoskins Somos 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.
Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago.
Many of the best independent record labels mirror the aesthetic of the folks who founded them—if you’re going into business because you love music, that’s natural enough. It’s certainly true of Tompkins Square Records, run by Josh Rosenthal—a devoted record collector, he got started in the music biz in 1989 and launched his own label in 2005. Though Tompkins Square is probably known best for its diverse catalog of fingerstyle guitar music—including the first album by Nashville syncretist William Tyler and a slew of records by British experimentalist James Blackshaw—its total output is incredibly broad....
There’s a spooky ghost sign on the back brick wall at Ina Mae Tavern & Packaged Goods, a faded Dixie Beer logo that figuratively booms “Welcome to the Big Easy” in the overdrawn yat of a voice actor in a New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation promo. Those oysters make the menu at Ina Mae, which is named for Jupiter’s great-grandmother. They’re broad bivalves smothered in molten cayenne-tarragon compound butter, and while you’ll never taste their terroir, they’re hot, gooey gobs of slippery goodness just the same....
If it weren’t the sort of cold, drizzly evening at the time of year when melting snow turns the entire world into a sea of mud that clings to dog paws and sometimes splashes up their legs and onto their bellies, and if he weren’t a 110-pound cane corso, a breed that is capable of killing not only wild boar but also tame humans (at least according to urban legend), and if he weren’t a prize show dog whose single drop of sperm is probably worth more than my entire monthly salary, Paradiso Błekitna Przystan—known to his loved ones as Ivo—and I would be off together having an adventure, maybe splashing in the surf at Montrose Beach or lazing on the deck of a fishing boat or frolicking in the snow in Cumberland Park....
Onstage Robinson chats about her dating history, the weight she gained in her vagina, and her hairstyle choices (Afros make her feel important, she says, “like Frederick Douglass”) with an endearingly upbeat energy. She also lightheartedly addresses gender and race: she feels bad for her white friends, she jokes, because if their kids become astronauts, no one will care. But if Robinson’s future daughter goes into space she’ll end up on a Black History Month stamp....
Saved by the Bell 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.
courtesy of mad ink publicity X 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.
Julia Thiel Way too many pumpkin beers After last year’s pumpkin beer tastings, which quickly got out of hand and led to me trying more pumpkin beers than I’d ever wanted to, I was planning to skip the whole thing this year. Except I realized I had a bottle of Southern Tier’s Pumking and a Dogfish Head Punkin Ale in the basement that I’d never gotten around to drinking the year before (some people would refer to that as “cellaring,” but I call it “making room in the fridge”)....
The first nonnative settler in the city of Chicago, French-Haitian explorer and trader Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, died 197 years ago, and earlier today the DuSable Park Coalition hosted a memorial ceremony at Pioneer Court honoring its namesake. If you couldn’t make it to the celebration you can find a substitute in Dusable, a brand-new mixtape from Chicago rapper the Boy Illinois. The mixtape is a tribute in name rather than execution....
When Melissa Mallinson and Nicole Gifford co-founded the Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival nine years ago, they were independent choreographers looking for opportunities to show their work in an increasingly dismal environment for the arts. “A number of festivals became defunct around the time of the recession of 2008-’09,” recalls Mallinson. “A lot of arts organizations were really struggling. We were thinking about the types of opportunities we wanted to be involved in, what our experiences had been, and what types of companies and choreographers needed more representation....
Richard A. Chapman/Sun-Times Governor Pat Quinn, who favors spending on education and social programs, is facing a tough reelection challenge from Republican Bruce Rauner with big implications for Chicago/ Which matters more for Chicago—the mayoral election next February, or the gubernatorial election this November? And Chicagoans will have much to say about the outcome of the governor’s race. In 2010, state senator Bill Brady beat Quinn in 99 of the state’s 102 counties....
