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The Reader's guide to the 31st annual Chicago Blues Festival
Bettye LaVette and Dr. John headline an unusually diverse Chicago Blues Festival whose side stages hold underappreciated treasures. by David Whiteis, Bill Dahl, Peter Margasak and Leor Galil Most of...
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Sweet soul: The generosity and tragedy of soul historian Bob Abrahamian
When I learned that my friend Bob Abrahamian had taken his life on Thursday, I felt a physical jolt, an actual spasm of sadness. But I was not surprised.…[ Read more ][ Subscribe to the comments on...
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Northdown builds another ludicrous tap list for this Friday's Lions, Tigers...
I wrote about Lions, Tigers and Beers last year, when the event raised $10,000 for the Wildcat Sanctuary in Sandstone, Minnesota, and generally I try not to repeat myself in this column. But I'm a cat...
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Is the Near North Side the right neighborhood for Obama College Prep?
For a school that won't begin rejecting students until 2017, Obama College Prep has already ticked off a lot of people. Why?…[ Read more ][ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
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Orange Is the New Black sends us back to prison
Dropping an entire season of an hour-long dramedy onto Netflix puts viewers in an interesting predicament. Fail to watch it all at once and you run the risk of spoilers (which were on Twitter almost...
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The appetite destroyer: Wang mandoo at Joong Boo Market
I've been remiss in failing to report on the great leap forward in the state of the dumpling in this town, which has come thanks to the wang mandoo stand outside Joong Boo Market* in Avondale. Wang...
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How does Nymphomaniac compare to other cinematic endurance tests?
Among other things, Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac (playing this week at the Siskel Center) is an extended tribute-cum-insult to Ingmar Bergman, with the meandering intellectual blather delivered by...
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Reader's Agenda Tue 6/10: Guerrilla Truck Show, Creatives at Work, and Eagulls
Looking for something to do today? Agenda's got you covered.…[ Read more ][ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
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Donald Trump deserves our thanks
Search your souls, Chicago. You don't likeT R U M P, the letters now plastered on the south face of Trump Tower about 200 feet above street level.…[ Read more ][ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
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Did you read about the Western-Belmont overpass, the Washington Redskins, and...
Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, amuse, or inspire us.Hey, did you read:• About the latest in defensive architecture, designed to keep the poor and homeless at bay? —Tony Adler• How the...
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12 O'Clock Track: Terry Farley's punched-up, psychedelic remix of Primal...
Last summer I randomly pulled out Primal Scream's kaleidoscopic, Stones-meets-the-Orb masterpiece Screamadelica (Creation/Sire, 1991) from my CD collection and ended up playing it to death. When the...
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A journalist's moment of truth in a Nairobi slum
Journalists who turn to fiction know better than to make their alter egos paragons. What journalists do—or at least the way we do it—is morally sketchy even to ourselves, and the finest thing about us...
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Vodka from the West Loop: Talking with CH Distillery's Tremaine Atkinson
It takes a certain temperament to find happiness in a field where things often age for years. Tremaine Atkinson apparently has the temperament for distilling—his first try at a brewing business was in...
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Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House may be getting a needed lift
A move to Chicago might be better for Mies van der Rohe's modernist masterpiece. by Deanna Isaacs For the past couple months the National Trust for Historic Preservation has been conducting a public...
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Rahm's alderman explains why Chicagoans will now have to pay more taxes to...
The morning after the city's pension "reform" bill became a done deal, 47th Ward alderman Ameya Pawar walked into a North Center cafe wanting breakfast. Some strategic thinking was also in order,...
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The brave new human architecture of Levels and Lines
For Levels and Lines, Kristina Isabelle puts her dancers on stilts. by Jena Cutie In this modern ballet, performed as part of the Pivot Arts fest program "Gravity," Kristina Isabelle retools the...
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Monstrous Regiment, delightful show
Lifeline Theatre's delightful Monstrous Regiment adapts a volume of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. by Tony Adler Ever heard off Terry Pratchett? Me neither, until a few days ago.…[ Read more ][...
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At its tenth anniversary, Crown Fountain remains a wellspring of questions
The only certainty in the future of artist Jaume Plensa's Crown Fountain is change. by Jake Malooley Whenever the Spanish artist Jaume Plensa is in Chicago, the first place he stops is the northeast...
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Gossip Wolf: An Emperor veteran launches Studious Amplifiers
An Emperor veteran launches Studious Amplifiers, Hoyle Brothers guitarist Brian Wilkie gets a benefit for a stolen pedal steel, and more. by J.R. Nelson and Leor Galil Bryant Howe used to design...
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It's high time Illinois made some money from marijuana
A trip to Denver shows the financial promise of legalizing pot. by Ben Joravsky As fate would have it, I headed into a reefer store in Denver to buy some marijuana—legal as booze, of course—at roughly...
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