Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Monday, June 13, 2016. Pat Quinn returns to the political scene with petition for mayoral term limits Ex-governor Pat Quinn has remained largely out of the spotlight since he lost to Governor Bruce Rauner in 2014. But he returned to public life Sunday to launch campaign for a two-term limit for Chicago mayors and an elected consumer advocate position for the city. Although Quinn says that the petition isn’t aimed at a specific person, the referendum could be on the ballot before the next mayoral election in 2019, and if it passes, Mayor Rahm Emanuel would be ineligible to run again....

Courtesy HBO Robert Durst and his erstwhile best friend, Susan Berman, whom he’s suspected of murdering WARNING: THIS BLOG POST IS ONE BIG GIGANTIC SPOILER. The morning the finale was set to air, the news broke that Durst had been arrested in New Orleans (where he’d checked into a hotel under a pseudonym) for the murder of his onetime best friend and confidante, Susan Berman. I didn’t read beyond the headline until after the show aired—I hate spoilers as much as the next guy, even when the “spoiler” amounts to real life in progress....

Q: My husband left the picture recently, and I’m now a single mom supporting an infant in Toronto. I work a retail job and am drowning financially. I hooked up with a guy I met on Tinder, and I didn’t warn him that I’m still nursing because I didn’t even think of it. Luckily, he really got off on it—so I was spared the awkwardness of “Eww, what is coming out of your tits?...

Poet, singer, and performer Marvin Tate has been a steady presence in Chicago’s artistic fringe for several decades, working with Leroy Bach’s art-funk band Uptighty back in the 90s while also fronting his own multidisciplinary omnibus D-Settlement. But I’d never paid him much more than passing attention until I caught him a few times in Mike Reed’s Flesh & Bone project, in which his presence, sense of rhythm, and language grabbed me by the throat....

Welcome the Year of the Dog with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, plus more things to do in the city this weekend. Here’s some more cool stuff we recommend: Sat 2/17-Sun 2/18: Chicago Children’s Theatre (100 S. Racine) kicks off its first full season at its new West Loop home with the musical My Wonderful Birthday Suit! The Reader‘s Dan Jakes praises the show, saying it “refreshingly dispels the ‘I don’t see race’ myth and encourages young children to embrace skin color....

One of the most spectacular characteristics of Detroit’s Protomartyr is just how spectacularly understated they remain as a postpunk force, even with the recent release of their fourth full-length and Domino Records debut, Relatives in Descent. Subtlety in postpunk is par for the course—the subgenre is essentially defined by its minimalistic structures, exercises of negative space, and detached nihilism—but on their new record, Protomartyr’s sound is giant without ever verging on arrogance....

Brian Jackson / Sun-Times Media Mayor Rahm Emanuel, accompanied by police superintendent Garry McCarthy, discusses his crime-fighting strategies with state legislators in September. During his first campaign for mayor four years ago, Rahm Emanuel kept talking about police. But within weeks of taking office, Emanuel stopped talking about hiring cops. Instead, over the course of his first term, the number of officers on the force dropped from about 10,900 to 10,600....

Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. • That Terry Pratchett fans are circulating a petition to rename one of the new elements “Octarine” (symbol Oc) in honor of the color of magic in the Discworld books? —Aimee Levitt • That idiosyncratic R&B artist Blowfly has terminal liver cancer and will release his final album next month? —Leor Galil

In Holy Trinity Church School’s massive basement, rendered whimsically creepy by cheap Christmas lights, tangled tree branches, utilitarian scaffolding, and immense translucent plastic curtains, veteran Chicago director Dado turns David Lang’s Pulitzer-winning choral work—based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl”—into an ethereal, decentered performance installation for Facility Theatre. For 40 tantalizing, indecipherable minutes, about a dozen silent performers engage in repetitive, enigmatic actions, both concrete and abstract, while eight vocalists sing about an abused, Christ-like beggar girl who freezes to death on New Year’s Eve....

In a city whose theater scene is rooted in an “ensemble” aesthetic, it’s rare to see a local actor given above-the-title billing, as is the case with Porchlight Music Theatre’s presentation of “Hollis Resnik in Sunset Boulevard.” But the marketing choice is apt in this case: it takes a local star of Resnik’s talent, skill, and cachet—honed and earned over almost 40 years of memorable performances—to artistically and commercially justify a revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s mediocre 1993 musicalization of Billy Wilder’s classic 1950 film noir....

During the last presidential election, Latinos for Trump cofounder Marco Gutierrez warned that if the U.S. doesn’t do more to stop undocumented immigrants from entering the country, “you’re going to have taco trucks on every corner.” Chicago is already approaching that utopian scenario. Our city has hundreds, if not thousands, of Mexican restaurants where taqueros and taqueras expertly griddle chunks of marinated steak and carve ruby-colored al pastor from trompo rotisseries, then deposit the meats in warm corn tortillas and top them with chopped onions and cilantro....

On a May afternoon at the outdoor mall Chinatown Square, a group of Asian grandmas wave their arms and sway their hips in a production of guang chang wu (Chinese square dancing). A line of men begins to form into a dragon dance, and later, a singer wearing face paint performs traditional Chinese opera. Zhong has become an unofficial voice for the youth of Chinatown through his marketing agency Tian Represent, serving as a bridge between older and newer residents in Bridgeport and Armour Square....

Professional soccer and stadium-size concerts are both unwelcome along the North Branch of the Chicago River—at least according to the alderman whose ward would contain the controversial $6 billion, 54-acre Lincoln Yards project proposed by Chicago developer Sterling Bay. “The Entertainment District will be eliminated from a revised plan and replaced by restaurants, theaters, and smaller venues that will be scattered throughout the site,” Hopkins said in his e-mail. “Live Nation will have no ownership interest in any of these venues....

For decades, southwest-side Marquette Park was a national symbol of racial bigotry. It’s no longer that today, but neither is it an emblem of togetherness. Marquette Park instead is one of the best examples of the city’s failure to find a path to integration. In the 1980s, the Marquette Park neighborhood began to change racially. It changed in the customary way: blacks moved in and whites moved out. The area’s Latino and Arab populations also grew....

During the sit-/die-in, which starts at 10 AM, students plan to chant “Chicago, Chicago, can’t you see what these gunshots did to me?” and “Whose streets? Our streets!” before conducting a press conference to read demands for gun reform and community revitalization. The students will then march to Union Park to join the national March for Our Lives movement.

In a city full of distractions, we often find ourselves wanting to feel alone and surrounded by nothing but quiet. If you can’t quite afford to get to Bora Bora, here are some calmer-than-most spots closer afield where a person can think and just get a minute. While the South Shore Cultural Center is a must-see historical building and frequent pick of fabulous-on-a-budget brides, it’s also an active community center offering top-notch programming for the neighborhood and beyond....

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. When the bill was rejected by the City Council in 1986, an angry community immediately set out to revamp and reintroduce the ordinance. A newly formed organization, Gay and Lesbian Town Meeting, spearheaded the campaign. Its leaders included, over a two-year period, Rick Garcia, Art Johnston, Laurie Dittman, Jon-Henri Damski, Jonathan Katz, Irwin Keller, and Kit McPheeters, with crucial behind-the-scenes advice from Mayor Washington’s liaison to the LGBT community, Kit Duffy, and Peggy Baker and Jon Simmons, who succeeded Kit as mayoral liaisons to the community....

As a member of Calle 13—the politically conscious Puerto Rican hip-hop band formed by her brothers René Pérez Joglar and Eduardo Cabra Martínez—Ileana Mercedes Cabra Joglar began performing onstage when she was a teenager. By her late 20s, she was stepping out on her own under the name iLe. On her debut solo album, 2016’s iLevitable, the singer-songwriter delves into classic Latin American roots genres such as bolero, mambo, boogaloo, and rumba....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, November 16, 2016. Undocumented immigrants worry about their futures despite “sanctuary city” promise from Rahm Mayor Rahm Emanuel has promised that Chicago will remain a sanctuary city and will not deport any undocumented immigrants no matter what president-elect Donald Trump threatens. But invited to speak at the mayor’s press conference on the subject Monday, 21-year-old Mexican immigrant Luiz Gomez criticized both Emanuel and U....

The members of Detroit art-rock group Saajtak met at the University of Michigan in the early 2010s, when all four participated in an improvising ensemble called the Creative Arts Orchestra. They’ve since carried the experimental traditions they explored as students into their work in Saajtak and into their individual creative pursuits—each has developed such an impressive career that their CVs could fill a chapbook. Bassist Ben Willis composes music for dancers in a theater troupe called Nerve; percussionist Jon Taylor reframes ancestral Eastern European Jewish songs in new-music compositions as part of the ensemble Teiku; electronics maestro Simon Alexander-Adams has presented his multimedia art at Coachella; and vocalist Alex Koi has performed at the Toronto Jazz Festival....