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At the Chicago International Film Festival in October, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) announced local filmmaker Daniel Nearing as the first Independent Film Initiative (IFI) Filmmaker in Residence at the Chicago Film Office. As part of the yearlong residency, Nearing will direct an adaptation of the 1900 novel Sister Carrie, which will take place in Chicago, Paris, and Montreal. In addition to a $10,000 cash grant, Nearing will receive several other incentives from the Chicago Film Office, including a package of industry discounts on equipment rentals and permits, meeting space at the Chicago Cultural Center, and advisory assistance from a team of industry professionals....

Last week, Time Out eliminated the job of senior editor and critic Kris Vire. The fact is that arts coverage and the journalism jobs that go with it have been vanishing for a while. “The first major die-off was in the early 2000s, as the Internet started to take hold,” said Douglas McLennan, the Seattle-based founder and editor of the online Arts Journal, a daily digest of English-language arts and culture reporting....

Some filmmakers—be they full-fledged auteurs or studio journeymen—seem to reinvent themselves regularly, whether consciously or out of necessity, each new film different from the last. On the other hand, there are filmmakers whose oeuvres are remarkably consistent, exploring the same formal, thematic, and emotional terrain over and over again, to varied effect. A recent example of this kind of filmmaker is the American independent writer-director Kelly Reichardt. Reichardt’s seven features contain numerous throughlines and comprise an astoundingly lucid body of work....

In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman wrote that the telegraph was the first technology to beat the challenges of distance and deliver information across the country faster than a train could carry. This was not necessarily a good thing. It meant that bits of news could travel immense distances yet mean essentially nothing to those receiving it or perhaps worse, risk being completely inaccurate. Today the Internet is like the telegraph on steroids....

The Story of a Satellite, which screens as part of the Chicago Underground Film Festival, is a lighthearted comedy about dark, heavy themes, and this friction between form and content keeps the film compelling despite its frequent preciousness. Spanish writer-directors Miriam and Sonia Albert-Sobrino, who credit themselves as “the Also Sisters,” address the subjects of death, freak accidents, and deadbeat parents while trading in deadpan visual humor and quirky characterizations. The latter elements are so prominent, in fact, that you may not realize how sad the movie is until after it ends, though the melancholy aspect of Satellite isn’t entirely hidden from view: critical scenes take place in a cemetery, and the main character lives in constant fear of death....

The plunging temperatures of the polar vortex and the unending winter have all of us looking for a silver lining, and I honestly thought I’d found it: Weather this cold must mean we’ll have fewer rats and mice this spring, right? Rats have evolved to take on winter “I would suspect that most of the mice in downtown Chicago are inside right now,” says David H. Wise, professor of ecology and evolution at UIC....

Brian Jackson/For The Sun-Times Two weeks after the runoff election, it’s sinking in that Chicagoans really did vote to keep Rahm Emanuel as mayor. It’s been a little more than two weeks since the voters of Chicago—in their infinite wisdom—decided it would be a good idea to reelect Rahm Emanuel as their mayor. Good thing the money’s not theirs. It gives Mr. Mick Dumke and me plenty to talk about when we convene for our next First Tuesdays show at the Hideout....

Michael Gebert Leigh Omilinsky of Cafe des Architectes with brie—which they don’t make any more The ambitious, possibly slightly insane charcuterie and cheese-making program that Cafe Des Architectes chef Greg Biggers started at the Sofitel Hotel—the first restaurant cheese-making program to be licensed by the state of Illinois—was the subject of this piece in the Reader‘s Food Issue last November. When I ran into Cafe des Architectes pastry chef Leigh Omilinsky (who’s in charge of the cheese part) at the voting for the Jean Banchet awards, she told me a little about how the program had changed even in the few months since she and Biggers had shown me around last fall....

Chicago composer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist Cam Be draws on his community to invigorate his already bold musical ideas. On his new second album, Summer in September (on his own Camovement label), Cam and an ensemble of friends create immediately gratifying fusions of soul, funk, hip-hop, and R&B. Feel-good jam “Fade Away” opens with 16 people clapping on the twos and fours, jump-starting its relaxed but implacable rhythm and amping up its summertime-barbecue vibe—which provides a simpatico framework for Joshua Griffin’s limber bass line, Sam Trump’s smoky trumpet, and Chris Paquette’s tender conga playing....

With my old pals aldermen Danny Solis and Nick Sposato calling for an investigation into Lori Lightfoot, it’s time for me to cut one of my famous deals. The mayor’s handling of the video showing Jason Van Dyke shooting Laquan McDonald. While we’re at it, let’s launch a City Council investigation into how $50 million in property tax dollars earmarked for a Marriott Hotel in the South Loop wound up being spent on Navy Pier....

On October 19, 2018, six days after producer Jerrilynn “Jlin” Patton performed at the 16th annual iteration of experimental-music festival Unsound in Krakow, Poland, she decided to cancel her appearance a week later at the Semibreve Festival in Portugal. “I’ve never had to cancel a show due to my health, but this time I have to,” she wrote in an Instagram post at the time. Patton had worked for years at a U....

Scott Olson/Getty Images Mike Huckabee, friend of—and reliant on—the elderly Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. • That Mike Huckabee is banking on the old-person vote? —Drew Hunt

This article was reported in collaboration with In These Times magazine. But back in October, Ocasio-Cortez had a few others in mind. Tallying potential allies to Vanity Fair, Ocasio-Cortez listed prospective Congress member Kara Eastman of Nebraska (who lost a second close attempt to unseat a Republican) and one seated Democrat: Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García of Illinois’s Fourth Congressional District. When Tlaib and Omar vocally fought a House resolution condemning the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement to end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, García was one of only 16 Democrats to vote against it....

A Reader staffer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn. Joshua Virtue, “Loosey” Joshua Virtue raps in the duos Free Snacks and Udababy, which both put out music this winter—the former Eat Good Tape in December, the latter a self-titled EP in January. Virtue released the full-length Post Faith Dialogues in March, which includes the killer “Loosey.” When he performed it at his release party that month, dozens of people screamed along as he belted out rubbery rhymes on the song’s hook....

Elsa Muñoz’s paintings carry a sense of intimacy. They’re full of dark colors, but they glow—it’s as if light can’t help but seep through the lines. Panels painted with controlled forest burns have flickers of sunlight glinting through the smoke, flames spreading through shadowy leaves. Even an inky black floor-to-ceiling ocean tide at night shines almost silver in its froth. Her paintings are like dreams, even though they’re as realistic as realism can get....

Update: This show has been canceled to help slow the spread of COVID-19. Tickets will be refunded at point of purchase. Ensemble dal Niente commissions and selects new music that justifies the word “new” not just because it’s recently composed; it also challenges players and audience alike to experience performances in new ways. The ensemble’s latest program draws on the resources of its city by including compositions by current and former Chicagoans, as well as by recruiting as a guest performer one of its most renowned extant improvisers, saxophonist and clarinetist Ken Vandermark....

Despite what the title suggests, Netflix and Channel 4’s Feel Good might not be the comforting series you need right now—and it doesn’t claim to be. It’s a rallying cry for the queers, the addicts, and all of the ways they intersect, for better or for worse. Full disclosure: I’m no stranger to addiction. It dominated my household growing up—whether it came from substances that made you feel numb or dangerous habits that made you smaller, more desirable to others—and no matter how much time passes, the scars left from addiction never really go away....

You could scratch your back with the red-willow twig that serves as the delivery vehicle for the Xinjiang special lamb skewer at Friend BBQ. You could knock it in a bow and practice your apple shot, William Tell style. Or you could order a dozen or so of these fatty, sizzling, spice-crusted meat sticks and, once you’ve gnawed them clean, head into the night to hunt the undead that lurk in the side streets and alleys of Chinatown after dark....

A Reader staffer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn. Philip is curious what’s in the rotation of . . . Julia Miller, guitarist and composer Hagström Swede Patch 2000 In the late 70s the Hagström Swede Patch 2000 guitar became the world’s first production synth-guitar hybrid. (Ampeg provided the onboard circuitry and pitch/glide pedals.) The guitar looks normal, but the neck is wired to transmit input to a synthesizer—in contrast to modern MIDI guitars, which rely on hexaphonic pickups, the MIDI information is transferred when the string touches the fret....

Stay tuned, folks! The exhibit should be a crowd-pleaser. But that’s only part of the strategy behind it. DuMont, producer and broadcaster of the 35-year-old syndicated show Beyond the Beltway (recently dropped by WLS but available through other outlets), says the financially pinched MBC is aiming for “greater awareness of who we are with the major consumer brand companies.” He’s hoping some of them will decide to put an executive on the museum’s board....