Once Memorial Day hits, it seems there is a different street festival on every corner. So how do you decide which ones are worth braving a sea of dogs and strollers? That’s what we’re here for. Make the most of your summer with these ten fairs and festivals, and consult these music fests while you’re at it. Sat 6/6-Sun 6/7, 11 AM-10 PM, Thalia Hall, 1227 W. 18th, pilsenfoodtrucksocial.com, $5 suggested donation....
Vivian McConnell—a veteran of Chicago indie-rock bands including Santah and Grandkids—turns inward in her solo project V.V. Lightbody (named for her piano-playing grandmother) to create shimmering folk-pop that arrives like a cool breeze of introspection. She’s referred to her music as “nap-rock,” but that tag suggests something sleepy while the sounds she produces are effervescent and light. Much of the material on her forthcoming debut album, Bathing Peach (due June 15 from Midwest Action), conveys the elegant sense of propulsion associated with bossa nova, though only one song, “Fish in Fives,” embraces that genre’s sashaying rhythms....
It’s 2 AM. Social media lights up with posts that send a feeble flare. After that night, I learned I was not alone. One of my friends on the west coast said they’d dreamt that the nation had descended into martial law and a time of extreme measures for survival. Another friend slumbered into a nightmare about getting yelled at in a drive-thru testing site for COVID-19. Others had stress dreams about work, traumatic events from their past, or accidentally infecting other people with COVID-19 by not properly socially distancing, and one friend’s nightmare mirrored the news of some cruise ships being docked indefinitely due to outbreaks, as she ended up as a passenger on an infected private yacht....
Few Chicago jazz musicians operate with the erudition and rigor of saxophonist Geof Bradfield, a scholar of the music’s history, a thoughtful composer, and an artist who never reverts to autopilot. When he was approached about making a live release by British Columbia-based jazz label Cellar Live, he didn’t merely trot out an assortment of past accomplishments but crafted new pieces with the attention to detail and holistic construction one might expect on a meticulously assembled studio effort....
Seeking: men Occupation: lawyer What are you doing when you’re not working? His friend says: “He finds time to serve on the board of directors for Howard Brown Health Center and as deputy regional president for the Hispanic National Bar Association, among other advisory board positions. Runner, networking events, fund-raisers, volunteering. Smoker? No. Pets? Dietary restrictions? Children? Religion? N/A. What’s your idea of the perfect Chicago date? In the summer, check out a local street fest followed by an evening on a Chicago rooftop, like Celeste or Fountainhead....
Those iconic, boxy beauties known as Chicago bungalows were the starter homes for a generation of immigrants looking to begin a new life in the city. The brick houses were built in the early 1900s for a wood-wary Chicago still skittish of fire, and were designed to fit the city’s standard lots and challenging winters. As the population boomed, bungalows were replicated tenfold because of their smart design and affordability....
Most Americans felt the pinch of chronic financial instability even before COVID-19 aggravated the country’s catastrophic wealth inequality by helping shift billions more dollars into the pockets of a handful of billionaires. So even if you don’t recognize yourself in the lyrics of Thank You, I’m Sorry’s “Menthol Flavored Oatmeal”—which describes a twentysomething working ten-hour days at a minimum-wage service job that barely makes a dent in their college tuition—you can probably relate to the band’s front person, Colleen Dow, when they gloomily sing about enduring the pressure cooker of early adulthood (though they wrote the tune before anybody had to consider the dire health risk of attending in-person classes or working a service-industry job during a pandemic)....
Friday, June 8 Front Porch Stage Wrigley Square 11 AM Blues in the Schools with Katherine Davis, Tim Gant, Tino Cortes, Alan Burroughs, and Stone Academy students 12:15 PM Jimmy Burns solo 1:30 PM Jimmy Johnson duo 2:45 PM Lurrie Bell & Eddie Taylor Jr. with the Bell Dynasty 4 PM Guy King solo 5:30 PM Tail Dragger 6:45 PM Rockin’ Johnny Burgin 8 PM Giles Corey Crossroads Stage...
When Mike Bush was 12, all knees and soft eyes, he won a scholarship to attend youth classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It was summer 1968, hot and angry and hopeful, and while it would end with young anti-war protesters getting beaten with billy clubs by Chicago police at the Democratic National Convention downtown, it began with Mike, a young Black aspiring artist from the Wild Hundreds by way of Memphis, slinging his bag of paper and pencils over his shoulder and stepping out into the sun....
Michael Gebert Joe Woodel at Husky Hog Bar-B-Que Yesterday I talked with Husky Hog Bar-B-Que owner Joe Woodel about how he got into competition barbecue—the romance of competing mano a mano with smoke and fire. Well, today’s more about the gritty reality of having a food truck and a stand-alone restaurant and trying to make a living making barbecue. Husky Hog is in Bridgeport, a rare example on the south side of Tennessee-style barbecue, which doesn’t revolve around rib tips and hot links like most south-side barbecue....
One of my last great group restaurant meals was in February. All the essential elements for a swell time were present: a long, loaded table occupied by interesting, (often) hilarious people; a nearly empty dining room that afforded us the company of the owners, who treated us like their own; an array of some 13 astonishing dishes, paired with about half as many BYO wines (the likes of which I’ll probably never taste again)....
Following the tragic nightclub shooting in Orlando, Chicago’s upcoming Pride Month celebrations feel more significant than ever. While it’s been difficult to find joy between vigils and crucial discussions about safety, the LGBTQ community has always known how to celebrate in spite of violence. Here’s a list of events happening around the city that offer solidarity, sun, sand, and some seriously good snackage. Chicago Pride Parade Chicago Fire star Monica Raymund serves as grand marshal of this year’s parade, which stretches between Lakeview and Uptown and showcases 150 different participants....
ARTIST: Keith Herzik SHOW: No Men, Grlwood, and Wet Wallet at Cole’s on Fri 5/10 MORE INFO: etsy.com/shop/Alamolgloo
A little more than two years ago, the Chicago Tribune published an editorial urging the City Colleges of Chicago to sell its public television station, WYCC, channel 20. “Everyone remembers the disastrous parking meter deal. This isn’t like that,” the Tribune concluded. But on November 27, the station went dark. What happened? This is significant in retrospect because, as the bids for WYCC dropped below $100 million and then much lower, City Colleges didn’t drop out but like the proverbial frog in the pot over a fire, hung in till it was cooked....
Historically, residents and aldermen in wealthier north- and northwest-side wards have been more vocal about pushing for bike lanes and racks than their south- and west-side counterparts. That’s one reason why the lion’s share of cycling infrastructure has been concentrated north of Madison. “In the past, the city’s philosophy has been that the communities that already bike the most deserve the most resources,” Slow Roll Chicago cofounder Oboi Reed (now a Streetsblog board member) told me at the time....
T here’s fastback Mustangs, there’s tight pants, there’s Afros, there’s ancient Dutch farmers walking along with palsy . . . it’s the human comedy,” says Paul Petraitis. He’s describing the 45 minutes of film he and John McNaughton shot in 1970 in their south-side neighborhood of Roseland and have recently started digitizing. “Fifty years in production and we just started last Thursday,” their editor, Bob Brandel, jokes. These 45 minutes will be the centerpiece of a documentary the three old friends hope will explore Chicago’s history and culture and the way race and economics have affected the city....
Sue Kwong One of the greatest pleasures of reading is not just the act of getting a chance to explore someone else’s brain and someone else’s world for a while but also emerging from a book and arguing about it with somebody else. The Seminary Coop was, last Saturday, kind enough to give some of the Greatest Chicago Book tournament judges and readers a forum for an hour-long argument....
QI found this in an online sex ad: “Straight guy with an addiction to massive cocks in my ass.” This “straight guy” went on to mention his girlfriend. Can a person really identify as straight while wanting to be fucked by men? I understand that straight guys can like ass play too, but it’s not like he wants to be pegged by his girlfriend or use a dildo on himself. He’s straight-up (heh-heh) looking for hung dudes to fuck his ass....
“I know too much stuff not to pass it on to people who would love to learn it,” says Eric W. Stiles, a 66-year-old master bespoke tailor who’s always had a penchant for education. After working in tailoring for more than 50 years—many of those dedicated to teaching—Stiles decided to make his knowledge freely available on his YouTube channel. Stiles picked Oak Park as a new location for his studio because he’d enjoyed a school he’d opened there in the early 90s, but closed it “for a particular reason....
The cover art for theMIND’s new album, Don’t Let It Go to Your Head, shows a young Black couple kissing with plastic bags over their heads. Photographed by Nolis Anderson, it’s a take on René Magritte’s 1928 surrealist painting The Lovers, which shows two people—one in a jacket and tie, the other in a top that exposes what could be a white shoulder—kissing through white cloth wrapped completely around their heads....
