A girl walks onto a stage that’s bare but for a suitcase in the center. Like any teenager entering a room, she’s looking down at the small flat object in her hand. There’s a chime that sounds like a text message coming in. But it’s not a cell phone—it’s a virgencita, an icon of the Virgin Mary. “Have you seen one of these before?,” she asks, before launching into a story, half-told in Spanish, about her family history....

I read Theorem in the bathtub. My feet were propped up as I made sure I didn’t get the bottom of the pages wet (a bad habit I have). The book opens with an image of a red cube and an off-white cylinder. “At 13, I fell in love with the tidy solution of geometry,” reads the text. Theorem is not what you may expect from a book of poems. The long text is a push-pull relationship between writer and artist....

As far as shitty tenants go, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has nothing on the men and women of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In 2012, as part of an unregistered sting dubbed Operation Fearless, agents rented a storefront in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood-disguised as a clothing and housewares outlet-in order to ensnare low-level criminals by luring them into a gun buyback scheme. The operation was a model of ineptitude: guns were stolen, wrongful arrests were made, and Chauncey Wright, a mentally handicapped man who worked for the agents and sold them guns and drugs, ended up serving six months of house arrest and four years of probation....

The forecast for this week is full of frigid temps. Still, there are a lot of good reasons to get out of the house. Here’s some of what we recommend: Tue 1/12: Tonight is the premiere of Chicago’s Slurring Bee at Quenchers Saloon (2401 N. Western). The five-buck entry fee buys you free shots for every round of this spelling bee you’re able to stay competitive for. Billy Parker and Mandy Levy host....

On his previous two albums virtuosic Tuareg singer and guitarist Oumara “Bombino” Moctar worked with American producers Dan Auerbach (Black Keys) and David Longstreth (Dirty Projectors). Each of these auteurs left an imprint on his desert blues without muting his inviting soulfulness and beautifully scuffed sound—a bit of organ-stoked soul from Auerbach on 2013’s Nomad (Nonesuch), a bouncy, syncopated sheen from Longstreth on 2016’s Azel (Partisan). Like the best Tuareg artists who’e made inroads in the rock world, the Nigerien musician has never lost direction, but for his new record, Deran (Partisan), Bombino returned to Africa to record his rippling grooves in Casablanca, Morocco....

Richard A. Chapman/Sun-Times ‘Scuse me, while I kiss some rich guys’ asses. Every now and then I get carried away and make a prediction that comes straight from the heart. I would now be pretending that I’d never made that audacious prediction if not for the fact that Peter Holderness—the world’s greatest videographer—was on hand to record it. Enjoy the evidence: Thus, my positive vibrations are like a song by Jimi Hendrix that brings peace and love to a troubled world....

The cocktail’s last ingredient was fino sherry, which Momose describes as smooth, creamy, and a bit salty. The proportions of the ingredients, particularly the uni tincture, took a little finessing, she says. “A couple iterations got too fishy, a little unpleasant. It was a challenge finding the perfect balance of the other ingredients next to the uni in the cocktail.” Who’s next: 

Words by Tiffany Walden / Video by Morgan Elise Johnson One of the most distinctive characteristics of the west side’s Douglas Park is the rows of Chicago-style two-flats lining the perimeter of its 218 acres. Like many of the beautiful green spaces around the city, the park was created for the neighborhood that surrounds it—in this case North Lawndale, a predominantly black, blue-collar enclave. On any warm day, the concrete porches of these homes fill with families gossiping, laughing, and enjoying the sunshine while their little ones play in the big park across the street....

Salem seemed briefly ubiquitous in 2010, but history has been kinder to this midwestern electronic trio than anyone would’ve predicted from their rapid rise and equally rapid dismissal. That’s largely due to timing. The members of Salem—vocalists and producers Jack Donoghue, John Holland, and Heather Marlatt—fused narcotized, chopped-and-screwed hip-hop to even drowsier dance music, and their messy, torpid debut album, King Night, caught a certain kind of lightning in a bottle, defining a microgenre called “witch house....

Last month, community organizer Jahmal Cole floated a bold proposal: Eliminate all fares for riding the CTA. As the founder of the My Block, My Hood, My City nonprofit, he often leads underprivileged youth on transit field trips to different neighborhoods. For example, a 2014 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that U.S. traffic crashes cost $871 billion a year in economic and societal costs. Since the city of Chicago represents about 1/120th of the nation’s population, our share of that loss could be roughly $7....

Now that this year’s Lisagor Awards are behind us, the Chicago Headline Club needs to go back to the drawing board. The competition’s guidelines are obsolete. “I can’t imagine a Lisagors where the Tribune and Sun-Times don’t go head-to-head,” says board member Flynn McRoberts of Bloomberg News. Yousef suggested I talk to McRoberts because he speaks for a committee responsible for keeping the Lisagors in step with changing times. “We spent all sorts of time talking about categories,” he tells me—but at the molecular level of “affiliated” versus unaffiliated bloggers, freelancers versus staff writers....

Alison Green Chance the Rapper is one of the headliners of this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival. Or most of it at least (there’s sure to be a straggler or two). At first glance, one of the best aspects of this year’s lineup is the heavy local influence. Wilco and Chance the Rapper are headliners—the reunited Sleater-Kinney are filling the Saturday headlining slot—with Vic Mensa, Jimmy Whispers, and Ryley Walker also being given the opportunity to get weird....

The Various Artists Independent Film Festival (VAiFF), a Chicago-based competition festival for independent filmmakers worldwide, begins taking submissions November 1 for the “fall season” of its inaugural festival, slated for October 7-8, 2017, at ShowPlace ICON in the South Loop. The festival is sponsored by Various Artists TV, an independent network and website launched earlier this year in Chicago. The network streams films and shows from independent filmmakers and gives viewers the option to vote for their favorites; it also provides production services to independent filmmakers or small business owners looking to “crew up” a film, TV commercial, web series, or music video....

ARTIST: A.G. Trigoso SHOW: Empath, Bench, and CB Radio Gorgeous at the Hideout on Tue 9/10 MORE INFO: instagram.com/allietrigoso

Q: According to Science News, “If you would describe yourself as white or black, your earwax is probably yellow and sticky. If you are East Asian or Native American, it’s likely to be dry and white.” Is there DNA or other evidence available to show when this difference arose? —am77494, via the Straight Dope Message Board Cecil responds: A: If you’d asked this question not too many years ago, AM, I couldn’t have told you much: we’ve long known there are two types of earwax without knowing a ton more about it....

When members of the Second City first met with staffers of the online magazine Slate last fall to plan a collaborative political revue, they never imagined that the 2016 presidential election would transpire in the way it has so far. “There was pretty much unanimous belief by us and by the Slate staff that Trump would fall away as a nominee,” Second City director Matt Hovde says. “But as he built momentum and became the nominee, the comedian side of us was like, ‘Oh wow, this just made this show a lot more fun....

Q: My question is on managing “gray area” intimacies during the pandemic. I have a lover/friend that I’ve been hanging out with—fucking, drinking tea, going on hikes, eating ice cream, watching movies, and other activities—for about nine months. He’s 36 and was married for ten years and due to that experience he’s been a bit emotionally “boundaried” but he’s still really sweet and a good communicator. I’m in grad school doing a double masters, so the small amount of time we’ve been spending together has worked well for me....

Singer-songwriter Kevin Patrick, who makes charming, unvarnished acoustic bedroom songs under the name Field Medic, had an subconscious penchant for folk music long before he ever discovered Dylan and his 60s allies. In his early high school days Patrick gravitated toward the stripped-down material he’d come across on a now-defunct social network: “Every emo MySpace band had one acoustic track on their album,” Patrick tells me. Now 26, Patrick cycled through a handful of other projects before he figured out how to do what he does so well in Field Medic....

ARTIST: Ryan DugganSHOWS: Brian Costello’s February residency at HideoutMORE INFO: ryanduggan.com

A video survey of Side Street Studio Arts’ 2015 season starts with two women in the backseat of a car, making fart noises into their arms and laughing. You think, Uh-oh. But what follows is a pretty impressive collection of images showing performances, concerts, gallery shows, and crowds. The Elgin-based SSSA brings its combination of arts and brrraappps to Wicker Park this weekend, partnering with Core Project Chicago on the Going Dutch Festival....