The cover of Sea When Absent I’ve been a fan of Philadelphia dream-pop outfit A Sunny Day in Glasgow since their 2007 debut Scribble Mural Comic Journal (Notenuf). That album seemed to refract early My Bloody Valentine and Sarah Records singles through Animal Collective‘s screwy, childlike sense of songwriting and Wolfgang Voigt‘s lush, cavernous ambient music. On their 2009 follow-up Ashes Grammar (Mis Ojos Discos), they still enshrouded their music in Voigt’s fog-thick textures but turned up the BPM and channeled early-90s indie-dance-pop acts like Saint Etienne and the KLF....

Beer for dogs seems like one of those ideas that sounds brilliant if you’re alone with your dog and a can of Miller Lite, because who would make a better—and more nonjudgmental—drinking buddy than man’s best friend? (And, maybe some of you actually have poured some beer into the dog’s bowl, just to see what would happen.) It’s also one of those ideas that quickly fades in the cold, harsh light of sobriety because even cheap beer is more expensive than tap water, and there’s no sense in wasting it on a creature that will, in a pinch, nibble on kitty litter between meals....

Jury selection in the murder trial of former Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke began this week. Nearly four years after he fired 16 shots into 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, and nearly three years after he was indicted for the on-duty shooting, Van Dyke’s attorneys and the special prosecutor have commenced the painstaking process of picking the 12 men and women who will evaluate his actions. Diamond says that conducting voir dire interviews with each juror individually after the questionnaire, as Gaughan plans to do, is the right decision for a case like this too....

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place. Older strips are archived here.

For better and for worse, Governor Bruce Rauner has never made a secret of his deep contempt­—bordering on hatred—for the Chicago Teachers Union. So imagine my surprise when I got a call from a source I’ll call Cockburn—because he doesn’t want to be identified—informing me that Rauner’s old private equity firm was a paid consultant to the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund. In September 2011, just a few months after inking its deal with the teachers’ fund, Townsend was purchased by GTCR, the private equity firm that Rauner used to help lead....

One of the main reasons biking is my favorite way to get around Chicago is the good vibes. Cyclists can bypass hectic, sun-baked arterials during hot-weather rush hours in favor of tranquil, leafy backstreet routes. And nothing beats a relaxed cruise home, past buzzing neon and packed sidewalk cafes on an absolutely perfect summer night. Particularly irksome is sexist “man-shoaling,” noted member Heléna Klumpp, “by guys who assume they’re faster than me—you know, because they’re guys, so they must be....

Challenged by Sean Patrick Riley of the Burlington to make a drink with smoke, Big Star bartender Cayce Key decided to steer clear of smoky liquors like scotch and mezcal—which he says people lean towards when they think of smoke in cocktails. “I decided I’d side-step that and do smoke three ways,” he said. One egg 1/2 oz demerara sugar syrup 2 oz Flor de Cañna 7-year rum Angostura bitters Aecht Schlenkerla Eiche doppelbock Chocolate malt Smoked paprika

Chicagoans is a first-person account from off the beaten track, as told to Anne Ford. This week’s Chicagoan is Jeffrey Roberts, 53, principal architect, New World Design Ltd. “The project consists of four helium-filled balloon pigs that float just in front of and to the south of the Trump sign, so that you don’t see it as clearly. The pigs relate to Pink Floyd’s Animals album, which is based on the novel Animal Farm, and there are four of them, one for each year that we believe we’re going to have to endure the Trump presidency....

matterdance.com Runner-Up Hubbard Street Dance Chicago

If Donald Trump truly wants to turn off the spigots of hostile information flowing out of the federal government and insolent sass flowing in, may I suggest a war? In wartime even people with ardent attachments to the First Amendment find themselves agreeing everyone needs to shut up. Whatever this impudence was all about, once again the White House looked terrible. “The broader concern, of course,” reported Anderson Cooper on CNN Tuesday evening, “is that the administration is putting a lockdown on information it doesn’t like....

Collection Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam. © Charlotte Salomon Foundation. Charlotte Salomon® Charlotte Salomon spent most of 1941 locked in a room in La Belle Aurore, a hotel in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat in the south of France, painting. She was trying to distract herself from the suicidal depression that plagued her family—it had claimed her mother, the aunt for whom she was named, and, most recently, her grandmother—and the impending Nazi invasion....

Getty Images Some senators and corporate CEOs called for hiking the minimum wage earlier this year, but studies have found that the rich and powerful are typically less able to sympathize with others. An important new business principle is making itself felt: the more you pay your CEO, the more incompetent a job he’ll do. I suppose powerful forces would like to stamp out this notion before it takes hold....

Laith Saud, 38, was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1978, and immigrated to Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1979. Today he’s a visiting assistant professor of religion with a focus on Islamic studies at DePaul University, and the coauthor of An Introduction to Islam in the 21st Century. Here he describes how his hyphenated identity shifted his perception of America—and what he describes as its propaganda—during the first Gulf War, and what it’s been like to witness the rise of Islamophobia and xenophobia in the age of Donald Trump....

5411empanadas.com Runner-Up The Cheesie’s Truck

Dundee: A Hip-Hopera Stage 773 facebook.com/Dundeehiphopera Runner-Up Hatchet Lady

One way to think of Baffo, the fine-dining restaurant on the ground floor of Eataly, is that it’s Babbo Lite. Babbo, apart from being the name of the flagship restaurant in Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich’s empire, means “daddy” in Italian. Baffo is sort of a condensed version of Babbo, with some dozen dishes imported directly from the New York menu and seven more that look awfully familiar. In Italian, baffo is a term for mustache, so another way to think of the restaurant is “Daddy’s Mustache....

Anthony Moser and the Fat Tone Blues Band www.mosermusic.com Runner-Up Ronnie Baker Brooks

Seventeen famous names appear on a digital blackboard hung behind a long table. You may try to find the unifying principle among them while you wait for the start of BigMouth, running briefly at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. But I’m here to tell you it won’t be easy. The people on the list don’t come from a single time, place, gender, religion, or social stratum. One of them isn’t even real, strictly speaking....

TALsounds performs at Chicago Psych Fest on Fri 1/27.Credit: Zinzi Gugu Lombard-Miller Through 1/29: The Chicago Dramatists (1105 W. Chicago) hosts the 30th iteration of the Young Playwrights Festival, featuring works by high school students Alexandra Obert (Obsessed), Elyssa Saldana (Guarding the Princess), Ricardo Salgado (Eye See All), and Sejahari Saulter-Villegas (Race to the Finish). 7:30 PM Sat 1/28: Quimby’s (1854 W. North) hosts its sixth annual Zlumber Party, a zine-making slumber party complete with snacks, coffee, office supplies, and burgeoning friendships....