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If you talk to the artist Faheem Majeed for more than a few minutes, it’s likely that he’ll mention the South Side Community Art Center, the storied cultural institution where he served as executive director from 2005 to 2011. In some ways, he’s never left, as his art practice continues to explore the institution’s legacy and contemporary significance. It has certainly never left him. Allison Peters Quinn, the director of exhibitions at HPAC, curated the show, and chose to include smaller examples of earlier rubbings Majeed has done....

Writer-director Ira Sachs was raised in Memphis before moving to New York City, but you can tell he’s a New Yorker now because he’s so preoccupied with real estate. In his acclaimed indie drama Love Is Strange (2014) a longtime gay couple are forced to separate when they lose their condominium in Manhattan, and the pain of longing is only increased by the awkward living arrangements each is forced to make on his own....

Jean-Luc Guionnet’s relationship to music is complicated, and it shows. As a youth, he drew while his father played saxophone, and he didn’t much like what he heard. When he changed his mind during his teens and started making his own music, his first instruments were keyboards, spliced tape, and drums; he only came around to playing saxophone himself because the horn was easy to carry. Since the late 1990s, Guionnet has contributed to more than 80 albums, coming at music from a variety of angles: he’s used recordings of people talking about their listening environments to craft a meditation upon space and memory, employed church organs as vast sound generators, and improvised on alto saxophone alone and in small groups....

Back when he was an aspiring actor in the University of California-Irvine’s undergrad theater program, Arnel Sancianco joined some classmates at an In-N-Out Burger. “And one of my friends, jokingly, with all love, was like, ‘It’s gonna be really hard for you, Arnel, because they don’t write roles for Asians.’” For Anna Ziegler’s Photograph 51, he designed bookending spiral staircases that framed the gloomy lab where Rosalind Franklin, who helped discover the double helix structure of human DNA, labored in the shadow of her male colleagues....

In March 2020, playwright Heather Chrisler was holding auditions for the world premiere of her first play: an adaptation of Little Women at First Folio Theatre, where she’s an artistic associate. Actor Heather Chrisler, meanwhile, was in tech for The Last Match at Writers Theatre. In both Oak Brook and Glencoe, she recalls, everyone had a gut sense of what was coming and nobody wanted it to be real. All are a welcome departure from the toxic triumvirate of anger, depression, and guilt that Chrisler speaks of, with the caveat that “My grief wasn’t special....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, March 30, 2016. Chicago Public Schools announces contingency sites for April 1 CTU strike The Chicago Teachers Union is set to strike Friday. While teachers picket schools and take part in a rally in the Loop during the one-day walkout, CPS will open more than 250 schools, parks, and libraries for students and provide free breakfast, lunch, and CTA transportation. [Sun-Times]

When I first walked into Black Planet, a sci-fi-themed erotic adult night club, I stood around for a few minutes. I started to jump and fly a little, but quickly realized this wasn’t proper sex club etiquette—some clubs even ban it. This particular club offers live music every day from 2 PM to 4 PM, and I arrived just in time. Neon phallic shapes lit up the room and a figure with large black wings led the dance floor....

Ezra Furman’s “I’m Coming Clean,” released in early 2019, feels oddly prescient. “The world never goes back to the way that it was / That’s just not something that the world does,” Furman sings, sounding tuneful but resigned. “But I’m holdin’ on when the spin gets strong / I’ve got my knuckles tight and bloodless / I’m holdin’ on.” The final episode of the series so far (season three is currently in production, though an air date has yet to be announced) ends with another soundtrack original, “Care....

Despite what you’ve been reading about the far right’s consternation with Bruce Rauner over his ostensible support for abortion in Illinois, I think it’s been a pretty good month for the governor. And many, including Steve Bannon, are talking about recruiting someone to mount a primary challenge against Rauner. But I think it’s mostly bluster. In fact, I can’t understand why they’re so outraged. They knew what they were getting when they overwhelmingly voted for Rauner back in 2014....

In October 2015, VH1 launched Black Ink Crew: Chicago, a reality show chronicling the intertwining lives of tattoo artists working at 9 Mag, a Black-owned and -operated tattoo parlor in Pilsen. Black Ink Crew turned the shop’s regulars into celebrities, but cast member Phor Robinson already wanted to make a name for himself as a rapper before the first episode even aired—he’d dropped the full-length Sacrifice in early 2015. Since then, Robinson has put out four more albums as Phor, averaging nearly one a year....

Brian Jackson/Sun-Times Media Listen, Crains, Mayor Rahm doesn’t need any help getting away with TIF murder. I was lounging on the couch, watching my beloved Bulls on a peaceful Sunday afternoon, a bother to nobody, when Greg Hinz fired off the latest salvo in the great debate about TIFs. Greg Hinz is, among other things, an old pal who covers politics for Crain’s Chicago Business. OK, where do I start with my rebuttal?...

Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images Jonathan Ive, the guy who probably designed the thing you’re using to look at this picture • About how the vocabulary to describe nature has been shrinking and the quest to preserve the old words? (Some British words for “icicle”: “aquabob,” “clinkerbell anddaggler,” “cancervell,” “ickle,” “tankle,” “shuckle.” And “ungive” means “thaw” in Northamptonshire and East Anglia.) —Aimee Levitt...

Everyone made nice at today’s formal announcement for Jackson Park as the location of the Obama presidential library. This is the second recent loss of a world-class development project for Washington Park, which was also expected to be a prominent site for the ill-fated Chicago Olympics. But if anybody was disappointed, it wasn’t showing. One speech after another emphasized the benefits the Obama center will bring to the south side and the entire city....

Those familiar with Chicago’s heavy-music scene got what they were expecting with Delayer, the 2016 debut record from Chicago experimental-metal supergroup Rlyr. On it Pelican guitarist Trevor De Brauw, Locrian and Cleared drummer Steven Hess, and former Russian Circles/sometimes Bloodiest bassist Colin DeKuiper combined their powers to make an album of expansive instrumental postmetal that steamrolled their aggressive and pretty sides together. On the brand-new Actual Existence (The Flenser), Rlyr bust out of the formula they set up on Delayer and throw the world a curveball: they went ahead and made a pop record....

George Kahumoku Jr., Nathan Aweau, and Kawika Kahiapo are masterful slack-key guitarists whose music embodies Hawaiian traditions, and between the three of them, they certainly have the accolades and awards to prove it—Kahumoku, for instance, is a four-time Grammy winner. Their six- and 12-string skills are unquestionable, and between their playing and their distinct ways of incorporating Hawaiian culture into their music, they’ve each fashioned a niche as viable singer-songwriters. Kahumoku is devoted to keeping indigenous Hawaiian music going strong, and in addition to his albums and performances, he’s taught, appeared in music documentaries, and written books to spread the slack-key gospel (and in 2015, he performed a duet with Tia Carrere on the revived Hawaii Five-O television show)....

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. Article one stipulates, not in so many words, that Thou Shalt Wait Before Calling the Media. Inserted at the insistence of astronomers such as Peter Boyce of the American Astronomical Society, article one directs research organizations discovering a possible alien signal to hold off making a public announcement until they “verify that the most plausible explanation for the evidence is the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence rather than some other natural phenomenon....

“I don’t think there’s much difference between dance and everyday movement except for intent,” says dancer Robby Lee Williams. “Are you feeling out some rhythm, some music in your head? Or adding different qualities if you have an emotion?” A conversation with Sarah Najera, artistic director of Oak Park integrated dance company MOMENTA, sparked his recent exploration. “We were talking about how putting your pants on could be a dance movement....

Chicago producer DJ Corey is footwork royalty. His father, DJ Clent, got hooked on ghetto house in the early 90s, and by the end of that decade had established a career in the faster, more aggressive styles of juke and footwork. Clent began nurturing his son’s interest in music long before Corey could make tracks on his own. In a 2009 video recorded when Corey was a toddler, he’s practically in his father’s lap while he plays around with Clent’s MPC—and the raw track they’re working on includes a sample of the young producer-to-be gleefully saying “DJ Corey....

To that long and growing list of people declaring unmitigated resistance to President Trump—a distinguished bunch that includes Charles Blow of the New York Times, the Reader‘s own Derrick Clifton, and pretty much everyone in my family—let me add one more name: Luis Gutierrez. I know this because I checked in with the congressman one dark and dreary day just before Thanksgiving, just as, coincidentally, I watched a few teenagers gather in the alley outside my neighbor’s garage to fire up a joint....

Chicago singer-songwriter Daniel Knox can conjure whimsy and tenderness with subtle shifts in his commanding baritone voice. That ability suits him well in his new album-length tribute to everyone’s favorite neighbor, Fred Rogers. You Are My Friend: The Songs of Mister Rogers honors the original spirit of the material; Knox plays simple piano melodies that exude inviting playfulness, and he sings about everyday joys and fears with an earnest care that legitimizes listeners’ life experiences....