Q: I recently stumbled on an Instagram account of a young woman who’s a “knife play” enthusiast. I consider myself sex positive, but I must say I was disturbed by the images. I was also shocked that I didn’t know this was a thing! But of course it’s a thing, ‘cuz everything is a thing, right? I don’t want to outlaw it, and everyone has a right to their kinks, I guess, but I’m so wigged out!...
Won Kim likes surprises, so he only knows three of the soups on deck for Monday’s Souper Bowl 3 Peat at the Co-Prosperity Sphere: minestrone, turkey pozole, and potato leek. But those are but drops in stockpot at the third iteration of the Kimski chef’s community soup series which will feature more than 30 soups from chefs and amateurs alike including Food Chain favorites such as Aaron McKay of the Chicago Board Game Cafe, Brian Fisher of Entente, Margaret Pak of Thattu, Sarah Kaleta of Kimski, Nick Jirasek (Young American), Kevin Hickey (Duck Inn), Rafael Esparza (Finom), and many more....
Just one week after Chicago Public Schools (CPS) went remote, the Chicago Poetry Center (CPC), a not-for-profit 501c3 arts organization designed to facilitate creative literacy and self-expression through poetry, was able to follow suit and pivot their CPS school-based poetry residencies “Hands On Stanzas” to virtual programs. Similarly, Leslie Reese, who works with second graders at Swift Elementary School, says she uses the bond she created with her students in person as an encouragement to experiment with her remote teaching method....
There’s lots to do this weekend; here’s some of what we recommend: Sat 10/8: Tonight Volumes Bookstore (1474 N. Milwaukee) hosts the podcast XX, Will Travel for a live episode themed “Out of Place,” featuring stories from Ines Bellina, Kathy Pulkrabek, Danette Chavez, and Sameena Mustafa. 7 PM Sun 10/9: Tonight watch Bianca del Rio, season six RuPaul Drag Race champion, in her stand-up show Not Today Satan at the Vic (3145 N....
ARTIST: Front Left Speaker SHOW: Justify My Love with Derrick, Afrodjia, and Futurehood, hosted by JayJay and Kim Passable at Smart Bar on Wed 6/26 MORE INFO: instagram.com/front_left_speaker
ARTIST: Bart Balboa SHOW: Listener, Birds in Row, Quentin Sauvé at the Cobra Lounge on Sat 5/4 MORE INFO: facebook.com/larougegorge
I doubt that a more entertaining film will play Chicago this summer than The Fate of Lee Khan (1973), which screens three times this week at the Gene Siskel Film Center in a new digital restoration. Lee Khan may not be the greatest work by director King Hu (that would be either Dragon Inn or A Touch of Zen), but it contains so many pleasurable moments that it may be his most satisfying to watch....
It was July 1966, and Chicago architect Bertrand Goldberg was celebrating his 53rd birthday at the construction site of his latest development. Although not yet complete, the four concrete towers of the Raymond Hilliard Homes emerging just east of Chinatown already had what would come to be Goldberg’s signature bulbous, organic shapes, reminiscent of corncobs or honeycombs. Goldberg, likely dressed in the gold suspenders, speckled shirt, and gold sneakers he often wore for such occasions, had the construction site decorated with Japanese lanterns strung up on bulldozers and other heavy equipment, and set trays of canapes out on two-by-fours....
Michael Gebert Pulled pork sandwich at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que This is not a review of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. And so is Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. The brick building with faux-faded painted signs is designed in full faux honky-tonk. (Hauxnky-tauxnk?) Which, frankly, so was Bub City 20 years ago, and is again now in River North. But Green Street Smoked Meats has set a new bar for fauxing honky-tonks; it’s immersive and gritty, and it feels like an episode of True Blood could break out at any moment....
The Facs formula has always been stark minimalism. On their first two albums, the Chicago trio—currently drummer Noah Leger, guitarist-singer Brian Case, and bassist Alianna Kalaba—built every track on tense rhythms, simple bass throbs, barely-there guitar plinking, and direct spoken-word vocals. It was like they were casting moods more than writing songs. The formula worked to great effect, both live and on record: their music was spooky, hard-hitting, and efficient, with no note or tone ever falling out of place....
Brian Jackson/Sun-Times Media Parks officials and the audience watched a video presentation at a Park District hearing on the Obama Presidential Library. I thought about going incognito to Tuesday night’s big south-side public hearing on the Obama Presidential Library, wearing an Inspector Clouseau mustache and hat, and speaking in a fractured French accent. As far as I can tell, their attitude toward the west side’s a little like Mayor Rahm’s—they know it’s there, but they don’t want anything to do with it....
For most of my life, Animal Crossing was a tiny and indescribable world made just for me. It was reserved for the turquoise Nintendo DS original that I got for my eighth birthday, the now-clunky-feeling device that hosted a sticky and peeling Nintendogs decal across the front and served me throughout my childhood. Playing Animal Crossing: Wild World on that thing was a daily routine during my heaviest DS-playing years, and I was always astonished at how deeply I cared about my weird, anthropomorphic digital town....
I’m not going to see the Misfits reunion. I’m sure the 13-year-old me (or the 23- or even 43-year-old me) would bean current me with a skull for saying this, but it’s tragically true. I’ve spent thousands of hours listening to the Misfits’ sublimely perfect horror-hardcore incantations, and despite the bad blood between front man Glenn Danzig and bassist Jerry Only (who won a bitter legal battle to revive a hokey, Danzig-free version of the band in the mid-90s), I’ve always dreamed of seeing the original lineup reunited....
If you’ve bought music online during the pandemic, you’ve almost certainly done at least some of your shopping through Bandcamp—and if somehow you haven’t, consider this post a way to address that oversight. Annihilus, Ghanima Matt Christensen, A Swollen Sun Exhalants, Atonement Zora Jones, Ten Billion Angels Necrot, Mortal
The songs on the first three records Toronto singer-songwriter Afie Jurvanen has made under the name Bahamas have slowly lodged themselves into my brain by stealth, thanks to his understated production, seductive melodies, and crafty arrangements. That’s changed with his new album Earthtones (Brushfire/Republic). It’s not that the tunes are any less catchy or the sound of the record less artful than its predecessors, but he’s frontloaded them with a more extroverted vocal presence and a slinky R&B vibe that’s previously only lurked deep in the background....
The Back Room Deal features radio personality and longtime Reader political writer Ben Joravsky arguing local Chicago politics with Reader staff writer Maya Dukmasova. With sharp wit and stinging analysis, Joravsky and Dukmasova cut through the smoky haze of the elections to offer you a glimpse of the current Chicago races—ward-level and, of course, mayoral. Will these historic elections be determined in back-room deals, like so many in Chicago’s past? Let Ben and Maya talk you through it....
Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place. Released in 1955 by the Checker imprint of Chicago’s Chess Records, “Country” just scratched the R&B charts, helping Barge secure booking through the Shaw Agency—which handled some of the era’s biggest R&B stars, including Ray Charles....
In the midst of numerous allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse within the emo and pop-punk community this fall—particularly the ones against Brand New front man Jesse Lacy—Say Anything front man Max Bemis announced on Twitter his group would no longer play their spritely, soul-influenced track about sexual impropriety, “Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too.” Bemis wrote that the song, a B side from the 2006 reissue of their uncompromising 2004 rock opera, ....
Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Friday, August 5, 2016. The vibrant history of Jackson Park Jackson Park has played a key role in one of the most interesting chapters in Chicago’s history, the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. Neighborhood residents are excited about the forthcoming Obama presidential library and want to make sure the park continues to be a part of black cultural life. [WBEZ]
I’d like to punch him in the face. —Donald Trump, referring to a protester at his Las Vegas rally, February 22, 2016 My favorite movie of the year, Embrace of the Serpent, came out of nowhere and apparently went back. If you ever track it down, prepare yourself for a tale that will make you think hard about your relationship to the planet. The same goes for Seasons, a French documentary that chronicles the history of the forest across the last 20,000 years....
