Despite the horn-honking, conga lines, and firecrackers all over town that greeted Joe Biden’s victory, MAGA had a surprisingly decent election showing in Chicago. Before I go further, allow me to make one thing perfectly clear—just because Donnie increased his Chicago totals does not mean I’m a Debbie Downer about things. Actually, the credit for Wisconsin and Michigan goes to the hundreds of volunteers (I see you, Rose Colacino) who worked their asses off on behalf of Biden....
After years as one of the most prolific and unrelenting noise artists in the U.S., veteran LA experimentalist John Wiese seems to have deliberately altered his modus operandi. His discography lists more than 400 items under his own name as well as projects like Sissy Spacek, Leather Bath, and others, but over the last half decade his output has screeched to a near halt. That said, if he only intermittently drops a title like the recent one-sided record Escaped Language (Gilgongo), I’m OK with it....
Alex Katz—whose drawings are the subject of a retrospective at Richard Gray’s Chicago and New York galleries—is one of the most successful artists alive, but I’m baffled as to why that’s the case. Coming of age during the era of abstract expressionism and pop art, Katz carved out a niche with his flat, billboard-style drawings and paintings of his friends and family and their surroundings. His subjects couldn’t be picked out of a lineup, his landscapes aren’t on any map—he’s not much for specifics....
QI’m a male grad student who is technically engaged to a female grad student. She has numerous positive qualities, but she is repulsed by sex. She is very sensitive about her repulsion and becomes distraught when I broach the subject. She says that even the thought of doing anything sexual with me elicits a panic attack. She also insists that she is “broken” because, in the hopes of preventing me from leaving her, she forced herself to go further than she felt comfortable....
Watching Summer in the Forest, a new documentary that screens this coming week at the Gene Siskel Film Center, I discovered a new hero in Jean Vanier. An author, philosopher, and administrator, Vanier founded L’Arche, a community based outside of Paris for individuals with developmental disabilities, in the 1960s and continues to manage it today. His goal for L’Arche was to create an inclusive community where anyone could live a meaningful life, and Summer in the Forest shows multiple residents as they socialize, work, (or, in some cases, enjoy their retirement), and reflect on what it means to be happy....
ARTIST: Daniel MacAdam SHOW: Mastodon and Primus at Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island on Wed 6/6 MORE INFO: crosshairchicago.com
The first half of Theater Oobleck‘s A Memory Palace of Fear is ingeniously disappointing. After checking in with an officious loan officer who poses problematic questions (“Why are you?” came my way), skittish, white-haired real estate agent Constance arrives, welcoming you to the open house. It seems you’ve signed up to tour a dilapidated home, its massive cardboard facade a jumble of cliches from commercial haunted houses and bad horror movies....
MC and Second City Citizens member Rich Jones raps with an unflustered poise—he drops rhymes with a heap of confidence, but never lets his assurance throw off his calm vibe, which feels as much of an extension of his personality off the mike as it is when he’s rolling with the beat. Jones has a taste for throwback instrumentals that jell with his laid-back persona—his sonic interests pop up on February’s Love Jones, a three-song collaborative EP with producer Krush Love....
To ease the surreal feeling of watching baseball games with no fans in the seats, Gossip Wolf has been searching out new summer pastimes—like laughing at conservative sticks-in-the mud as they freak out about Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s hilariously raunchy smash “WAP” (and its hilariously raunchy music video). Ben Shapiro‘s epochal self-own (keeping his wife’s “p-word” dry to own the libs!) is even cringier than the clean version of the song, which replaces “wet ass pussy” with “wet and gushy....
About Face Theatre’s midwest premiere of this empowering Bryna Turner-penned comedy explores the connection between academics and feminists Mary Emma Woolley and Jeannette Marks during their time at Mount Holyoke College in the early 20th century. The women never publicly acknowledged a romantic relationship, but Turner pulls from the historical record (and takes some liberties with modern language) to paint an intimate picture of a couple struggling to find common ground while playing active roles in the growing women’s suffrage movement....
In the last week or so, on the cusp of the city’s partial reopening, there was a cluster of cancellations from its largest venues and events. The 2020 season is over, at least as far as live, in-house performance goes at Lyric Opera, Joffrey Ballet, Ravinia, and the Grant Park Music Festival. Pull up the covers and go back to sleep; maybe we’ll see you next year. Translation: this is going to be so hard for us, don’t expect it to happen anytime soon....
Q: I’m a 35-year-old woman. I recently discovered I’m a size queen. (Is it OK for me to use this term?) This has been brewing for a while as I have dabbled with purchasing larger and larger cucumbers and fucking myself with them after a good wash. I use a condom and tons of lube and it’s been amazing. Are there any safety or health concerns I should be aware of?...
Fiesta del Sol 2016 Pilsen’s Fiesta del Sol 2016 was filled with happy faces dancing to live music, eating delicious food, getting wet from the rain, and playing as many carnival games as possible.
The cover of the Atlantic that just came in the mail pimps the lead story inside with a headline that shouts . . . Fallows, a draft dodger during the Vietnam war who’s been thinking about that performance ever since, is a serious student of the American military, and, aside from the fact it’s not wildly original, I’ve got no problem with his actual thesis as framed by himself, not his headline writer....
When something as shocking and anguishing as Tuesday night’s election happens, it’s sure to be felt as a massive failure of communications. Why didn’t the ignorant know better? we wonder. How could they refuse to know better? Could it have been all those “false equivalencies” the media were peddling—the ones we saw through in a second yet were so impenetrable to anybody who wasn’t us? Someone else said she thought the last week of the Clinton campaign was most odd, a series of quiet rallies in small settings leading up to the ultimate blowout in Philadelphia....
Fri 8/26: Interdisciplinary artist Maria Gaspar explores the complex juxtaposition of what lies within and beyond the 25-foot wall surrounding the Cook County Jail in her exhibition, “On the Border of What is Formless & Monstrous.” She presents video and audio documentation taken inside and about the detention facility at the opening reception at the Experimental Sound Studio’s Audible Gallery (5925 N. Ravenswood Ave.). 6-9 PM Sun 8/28: Rachal Duggan, a local illustrator who has contributed to the Reader among other publications, participates in the Comfort Society series at the Comfort Station (2579 N....
A Romeo and Juliet story set in England in 1645, Vincenzo Bellini’s I Puritani is all about the bel canto music. It has a stagnant libretto, a mad maiden “scene” that drags over three acts, and a happy ending. Lyric Opera presents a stodgy 42-year-old production borrowed from the Met. See it for its sterling vocalists, especially tenor Lawrence Brownlee as Arturo and soprano Albina Shagimuratova as his true love, Elvira (a part famously, and probably more histrionically, sung at Lyric by Maria Callas)....
This week Tal Rosenberg looks at cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, the overlooked auteur of the Oscar-nominated wilderness adventure The Revenant, and I sample two features—Tokyo Drifter and Fighting Elegy—from the Gene Siskel Film Center’s monthlong retrospective on Japanese B-movie director Seijun Suzuki (Pistol Opera).
Casque d’or Each Friday, we recommend seven Old Movies to Watch Now, all of which come recommended by one of our critics and can currently be screened online. Read the review, watch the movie, feel accomplished. • Bright Leaves, Ross McElwee’s autobiographical documentary.
The first time the City Council had a chance to vote on funding the Marriott/DePaul boondoggle, Mayor Emanuel gaveled the deal so fast that most aldermen didn’t even know what happened. At last Monday’s finance committee hearing, the mayor had to pull a request to appropriate about $5 million for the project in the face of heated opposition from even some of his most loyal rubber-stampers. Thanks a lot for nothing, aldermen....
