There is nothing natural about being a grown woman. It’s a constant, mysterious process. Even those of us who profess not to give a shit live in a state of vigilance. Stray hairs must be plucked or waxed or shaved into oblivion. Our boobs must be harnessed. Do our buttocks have a pleasing shape? Is our lipstick the most flattering shade for our skin tone? How many things are we fucking up without even realizing it?...
Gossip Wolf has been anticipating the debut album from Chicago gothic-industrial monsters Hide since first covering them in 2014, and according to the duo’s vocalist, Heather Gabel, they’ve been waiting almost as long: “We recorded Castration Anxiety in two weeks and then waited two years for it to come out,” she says. “But it’s been well worth the wait, since we’ve found the perfect home with Dais Records!” On Friday, March 23, the New York label releases the deliciously brutal LP, and that night the band celebrate at the Empty Bottle with openers Forced Into Femininity and Lilac (both including folks who played with Hide’s beat maker, Seth Sher, in Coughs) and a DJ set from Hogg....
In the permaculture site at El Paseo Community Garden, seven layers of plants grow in a harmonious, planned ecosystem. Wild strawberries flourish at the foot of fruit trees, out of direct sunlight. Comfrey grows near herbs and berries, bringing nitrogen and phosphorus to the soil, acting as a sort of natural fertilizer to neighboring plants. A natural depression in the earth is host to swamp hibiscus, a wetland flower that can make use of the excess water that collects, while at the same time providing nourishment to bees, hummingbirds, beetles, and other pollinators....
Ryan Smith Michael Anthony (far left), Lucas Nunez (middle left), Leah Wheatley (middle right), and Ted Powers (far right) all managed to survive the first night of Hands-on-a-thon. Steve Dau can’t remember how old he is. It’s Saturday night and—at last—we’ve reached the final hours of Headquarters Beercade’s Hands-on-a-thon, a pinball tournament for extreme masochists. The part where you win the grand prize by outscoring your opponent? That only starts after you’ve kept one hand affixed to the machine while standing on your feet for 72 sleepless hours....
Note to T.S. Eliot: Sorry/not sorry, April isn’t the cruelest month. That would be January, the annual 31-day slog when, in Chicago, both sky and ground are a monolithic gray. If you aren’t among those who use “winter” as a verb (i.e.: “We’re wintering in Cabo”), consider 2019’s roster of festivals the entertainment equivalent of a high-wattage sun lamp. From young playwrights to veteran puppeteers, January stages bloom with diversions. Read on for the particulars....
Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Friday, April 1, 2016. Happy April Fools Day! Chicago mayor Tom Dart? He’s not ruling it out. Cook County sheriff Tom Dart might have a mayoral run in his future. He’s not ruling out a run for mayor in 2019, and will weigh whether or not he can make a difference and still have time for his family. It’s unclear if Mayor Rahm Emanuel will run for a third time, so Dart, who previously served as a state representative and a state senator, might be a good candidate to fill the establishment void....
I had really begun to think that Merle Haggard would never die. He outlasted all the great country stars (with the exception of his pal Willie Nelson), experimenting and adapting but never giving us anything less than his own ornery, poetic essence all the while. But alas, the Bakersfield legend passed away today, on his 79th birthday (according to his manager, he’d been suffering from double pneumonia). Hundreds of obituaries and remembrances will surely pop up in the next few days, and I don’t know how much I can add that others won’t say more articulately, but his death definitely closes the door on a long-gone era—a time when country regularly expressed the soul of working-class existence and its everyday travails with the sort of poignant universality and vibrant detail that was the Hag’s stock-in-trade....
All too often, a night out at the theater means compromising on an acceptable dinner. It doesn’t have to be that way, at least when it comes to the houses hosting the shows in this week’s features. Don’t kid yourself. Nothing in the lobby will make you happy at intermission. Show: Congo Square Theatre, Lincoln Park Dinner: Somerset 1112 N. State 312-586-2150somersetchicago.com Show: Unity Temple, Oak ParkDinner: Katy’s Dumplings 1113 Lake, Oak Park 708-383-9888katysdumpling....
THE MAYOR’S RACE isn’t the only circus in town. On February 24 voters will also choose their aldermen for the first time since all 50 wards were redrawn in 2012—though we’re pretty sure we know the outcome in six wards where incumbents are running unopposed. Aldermen have a significant impact on neighborhood development and service delivery. But each of these elections also matters beyond its ward boundaries, because the City Council has the power to slow or alter the mayor’s agenda....
By chance, word broke of the latest development in the DePaul basketball arena project at about the same time Mayor Rahm Emanuel was promoting his big speech on crime and policing in Chicago. In contrast, the DePaul deal is the one where the mayor’s building a B-ball arena and a Marriott hotel in a gentrifying corner of the South Loop, using hundreds of millions of public dollars that might otherwise be waged in his all-important war against crime and poverty....
The Seldoms: The Fifth October 13-15 Zephyr Dance: Valise 13 October 20-23 This year’s fall series highlights the 15th original work from resident choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo and a world premiere from Brian Brooks, the Harris Theater’s newly named artist in residence. Two reprisals complete the program: Czech choreographer Jiři Kylián’s all-male Sarabande and its companion piece, the all-female Falling Angels, set to music by Steve Reich. a11/17-11/20: Thu 7:30 PM, Fri-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Harris Theater, 205 W....
Mark Steuer called me a jackass. Key Ingredient was a cooking show produced by then-Reader staffer Julia Thiel and food writer/filmmaker Michael Gebert, in which Chicago’s baddest chefs challenged their colleagues to redeem unusual, underappreciated, or often abhorrent ingredients by showcasing them in beautiful plated dishes that might or might not have been edible. And then he called me a jackass, and got to work. Still, the chef found time to shoot his video, which you can watch online after a brief introduction to the reboot—from me....
Stretched tight between the residue of the saccharine sweetness of the American dream, the looming threat of nuclear war, and the heartbreak of the Kennedy assassination in 1963, lies Hope: Part II of A Mexican Trilogy. A follow-up to Faith, the first play in the trilogy by Evelina Fernández, which tells the story of the Morales family gathering their bearings after the Mexican Revolution, Hope picks up with them facing a rapidly changing America....
Much of silent cinema is lost to us forever. In an illuminating report from 2013 titled “The Survival of American Silent Feature Films: 1912-1929,” historian and archivist David Pierce revealed that approximately 75 percent of American silent-era feature films are considered lost. But that’s no longer the case for Edward Sedgwick’s The First Degree (1923), one film included in the exhaustive database of lost U.S. silent features maintained by the Library of Congress....
Some of my favorite recent hits have taken months to peak—Chief Keef’s “Faneto,” for instance, came out in October 2014 but didn’t achieve omnipresence till spring 2015. I suspect Kami’s “Payload” will follow a similar arc, and not just because I love the song. Kami is betting on it too: though the Save Money rapper initially released it on June’s Superstar (a five-song follow-up to April’s luscious full-length Just Like the Movies), he dropped the video for it last week....
I was hesitant as I walked into Pride Films and Plays on Friday night. Though the theater’s shows themselves offer powerfully human takes on queer identities, PFP’s work is often overshadowed by a shirtless-boy marketing shtick. In terms of queer representation, the image of sweaty, hairless white men is so pervasive and so limiting, a visual language favoring a singular type of transgressive sex and body. Ryan Oliveira’s Desire in a Tinier House is another gorgeous example of this dissonance at work....
Editors note: The September 17 screening and performance is sold out. CLATA will livestream the event for free through Facebook. Now, Destinos is going drive-in. Destinos al Aire takes place on Thursday, September 17 at Pilsen’s ChiTown Movies. The evening will include an open-air screening of the Mexican rom-com American Curious (directed by Gabylu Lara and set in Chicago and Mexico City), preceded by performances (both live and taped) from the Chicago artists of UrbanTheater Company, Aguijón, Repertorio Latino Theater, Teatro Vista, and the Cielito Lindo Family Folk Music ensemble....
The popular belief that the cells in our bodies replace themselves about every seven years has been challenged by the brief lives of cells in our stomachs and the longevity of those in our brains. This fall Visceral Dance Chicago launches its seventh year with seven new dancers, as well as one new dance. Yet its season opener this week at the Athenaeum takes a long look at the past with a selection of repertory from previous seasons by artistic director Nick Pupillo....
While Chicago postpunk four-piece Deeper was working on the follow-up to their 2018 self-titled debut, guitarist Michael Clawson quit the band. The remaining members—guitarist-vocalist Nic Gohl, bassist Drew McBride, and drummer Shiraz Bhatti—wrapped up the album as a trio. This past fall, after they’d finished, Clawson took his own life. Many of the songs on the new Auto-Pain (Fire Talk) became memorials, informed by the bandmates’ experience with a close friend who privately wrestled with depression....
Chicago rapper Roy Kinsey has long known how to make it feel like his voice is the most important in the room. When he appeared on “Loverboy,” a track on Big Dipper’s 2013 Thick Life mixtape that’s anchored by a perfect Sade sample (an idea that came straight from Kinsey), his persona radiates so strongly that while he doesn’t exactly steal the spotlight, I think he comes pretty close. With February’s Blackie: A Story by Roy Kinsey (self-released), he asserts himself as an impeccable, observant lyricist....
