When I learned The L Word was set for a reboot, unlike many queer folks, I felt nothing. Hear me out: the first season is not well developed–even the biggest of The L Word stans couldn’t and still can’t make it through season one. There were not enough storylines engaging Black queer experiences, and in my teen years I happened to find queer community on Tumblr and representation on YouTube shows like Studville that provided me more onscreen examples of same-gender loving folks....

A still from Frank About this time last year Frank, an Irish comedy about a band whose mentally unstable front man wears an oval mask that covers his entire head, started getting a lot of buzz at Sundance. I half-interestedly kept my eye out for Frank, partially because I wanted to see if Michael Fassbender could bring warmth and humanity to the title character—a role that required him to conceal his face for most of the film—and because the musical aspect intrigued me....

The Tribune editorial page made an intriguing suggestion Wednesday on how to get along with assault weapons. This makes sense. The Second Amendment argument hasn’t reached the point yet where it’s defended as a right to vent grievances. So long as all it guarantees is self-defense, a ten-round magazine should be plenty against the next Omar Mateen. If even half the patrons of the Pulse had brought AR-15s so equipped in with them, they’d have made quick work of Mateen....

There’s a remarkably blasé editorial in Tuesday’s Tribune on the latest Hillary Clinton e-mail furor. Faced with some 650,000 e-mails from Anthony Weiner’s laptop, some of them supposedly relevant to the investigation into Clinton’s e-mail that he’d called off months ago, FBI director James Comey was “caught in a vise,” says the Tribune. The Trib editorial notes that “some observers” say there’s an “unwritten pact” requiring the feds to keep their mouths shut about investigations involving office seekers 60 days before their elections....

The last fun party I went to was Dumpling Wars 2020 in late February at Marz Community Brewing. I was a judge for the contest, which was jam-packed with people inhaling momos, mandu, khinkali, and soup dumplings. There was a popular vote on the 20 contestants, and the judges picked their own favorite. After minimal debate we decided that best in show was a black-squid-ink empanadilla stuffed with wild boar chorizo, perched in the bowl of a spoon atop a crumble of cured egg yolk with salsa brava and manchego aioli....

Ultimately he incorporated the celery root into a cocktail by roasting and pureeing the vegetable, then adding the strained puree directly to the drink. Celery root “reminded me of a potato, so I thought of potato vodka, which I really love,” Marty said. “It comes out real creamy and frothy [after being shaken], which must be all the starches in there.” Using vodka as the only spirit meant there was “a little too much potato going on,” though, so he added gin to the mix....

Yelitza Rivera made at least one easy adjustment after she left Maracaibo, Venezuela, almost 20 years ago. It was thejibarito, the mojo-slicked pressed plantain sandwich invented in Humboldt Park by Juan C. Figueroa at the late great Borinquen Restaurant. See, her hometown in northwest Venezuela is the birthplace of the patacón Maracucho, a sandwich of strikingly similar construction, best eaten when the starchy green bananas are still hot and crispy from the fryer, and you’re in the right frame of mind and physical circumstances to negotiate the unstable strata within....

From Friday, June 21, though Sunday, June 23, the fifth annual Ruido Fest comes to Union Park to serve up contemporary Latinx sounds and tasty treats that go well beyond typical festival fare (with any luck, the zucchini-blossom tacos in handmade tortillas will make an appearance again this year). Latinx music has 21 Spanish-speaking countries, the U.S., and a multitude of musical heritages past and present to draw from, so it’s as wildly eclectic as they come....

The first time I hung out at the Palmer House, it was prom night. A couple of friends were in from out of town for a conference and were staying there, so it felt OK to take up a few chairs in the lobby. And then the fashion show began. I’m not sure which school the students went to, but they were firmly committed to the idea of going all out....

Kathleen Rooney wondered why she couldn’t find an English translation of Magritte’s writings, so she figured out how to release one on her own. By Janet Potter Video features Artists Andrew Yang and Christa Donner explore the natural world from the comforts of home By Chris Buddy and Aimee Levitt Best bets Expo Chicago, “Tattoo” at the Field Museum, and more exhibits and shows In a forthcoming book, the author and onetime Chicagoan explores American gun violence by telling victims’ life stories....

RICHARD A. CHAPMAN/SUN-TIMES The staff gets smaller, but the building stays the same size. The clock ticks Monday at the Sun-Times. By the end of the day management hopes to have a long-enough list of employees willing to accept buyouts to avoid having to make layoffs. Over the weekend I was told 11 editorial employees had volunteered, but another three names or so were needed. The target is financial: the paper’s losing money and the time has come to drill yet another hole in its belt....

Bruce Rauner released an ad in October that neatly summarizes his tenure as Illinois governor. The campaign commercial features the Republican governors of Wisconsin, Indiana, and Missouri, boasting about how awesome their state economies are, and sneering at Illinois for its financial disarray and economic doldrums. Rauner’s state is an ineptly governed disaster zone . . . but it’s not his fault! The GOP governors claim that house speaker Michael Madigan is at fault....

Space. The final frontier. X, a Sideshow Theatre production by Alistair McDowall (directed in its U.S. premiere by Jonathan L. Green), follows the misadventures of a group of British astronauts on Pluto. All life on earth, with the exception of humans, has died out (yet they can still mount major space missions). But bummer, communications from earth have ceased and no one can pick them up. Dysfunction reigns. Space madness sets in....

The Reader‘s archive is vast and varied, going back to 1971. Every day in Archive Dive, we’ll dig through and bring up some finds. Longtime Reader columnist Michael Miner wrote about the piece in 2011 for the paper’s 40th-anniversary dive into its past, calling it “the article that would forever define [the Reader].” The paper does have a history of extremely long cover stories, and I’ve heard it used to be a running joke that no one ever finished reading them....

The Band’s Visit, which cleaned up with ten Tony Awards in 2018 (including nods for David Yazbek’s score, Itamar Moses’s book, and David Cromer’s direction), seems at first to be an unlikely Broadway smash. It’s a small story about small moments—all of which can easily be swallowed up on a bigger stage. Having seen the wise and poignant magic this show revealed in New York, I was both excited and trepidatious about how it would stand up on tour....

When you hear the term “art book,” what do you think? Do you imagine a gleaming, high-end store exclusively for sophisticates, academics, and design geeks? Do you reflexively visualize a heavy, clunky publication that never moves from the same spot on your living room table? Or do you just pine for all the beautiful-looking books that are too expensive and unwieldy for you ever to display in your tiny apartment?...

At 5 PM Saturday, March 21, Governor J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 Executive Order No. 8, aka the Stay at Home order, took effect. Here’s a daily-ish journal of how Reader staff, our friends, family—and our pets—are spending our time. My gay bestie’s annual do-it-yourself Easter bonnet party Hangin’ at the Punkin’ Donuts in high school What we’re cooking:

At 5 PM Saturday, March 21, Governor J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 Executive Order No. 8, aka the Stay at Home order, took effect. Here’s a daily-ish journal of how Reader staff, our friends, family—and our pets—are spending our time. Succession on HBO (streaming for free!) Leslie Jordan on Instagram Esther Perel’s lockdown webinars 1988 Soviet cinema classic Heart of a Dogon YouTube (based on Mikhail Bulgakov’s 1925 novella) What we’re playing:...

It’s a toss-up for me between the floating torso with a desk lamp for a head and the disembodied hand holding, improbably, a whisk. These are a few of the evil, cunningly devised puppets ghouling it up at this Rough House Theater show, a hybrid haunted house and wordless play. Entering deranged architect Milton Harrow’s studio through the basement at the Chopin, we are greeted by his creations. Displays along the walls (no touching, please, except where you see a “touch me” sign) show his unfulfilled plans for an ideal society, from scale models of bleak fortresses to a cassette tape playing his spooky dicta on an endless loop....

Moody Tongue Brewing’s new tasting room in Pilsen isn’t for everyone. It’s not for those who prefer to watch TV or snack on fried foods while drinking a pint. In fact, it’s not even for those who want to drink from a pint glass. Or from a tasting flight of small glasses. The beer is served in hand-blown Austrian goblets with stems so delicate they look liable to shatter if you sneeze too hard, and there are no flights....