jeppsonsmalort.com Runner-Up Letherbee Gin

Myron Laban myronlaban.wordpress.com @CTA_Project Runner-Up xTRVON

During the 1960s, in the midst of the civil rights movement against segregation and discrimination, the teachings of the Nation of Islam extended beyond the fight for equality to include racial self-reliance, discipline, and economic independence. The Nation of Islam was founded in Detroit by W. D. Fard in the early 1930s, and quickly thereafter the Honorable Elijah Muhammad assumed leadership of the Nation after Fard’s abrupt departure. By 1934, Muhammad had relocated to Chicago and soon built Temple No....

Alison Marcotte Gallery officer Brian Sandstrom in front of MCA exhibition Sometimes we find meaning or feel a connection to artwork because of our personal experiences. This is the case for Brian Sandstrom, who has been a gallery officer for the Museum of Contemporary Art for almost three years. Sandstrom guards Chicago filmmaker Cauleen Smith’s “A Star Is a Seed,” which opened in May and is inspired by legendary musician Sun Ra....

Perrotta was working downtown as a receptionist when Occupy Chicago hit the streets. As a Columbia College public relations major, she was part of the promotional push behind a successful campaign to restore financial aid for low-income students. So when a friend told her Occupy needed a publicist, she signed on. “They had some good people who could talk to the camera, but they weren’t issuing press releases, and they didn’t have talking points,” she recalls....

Cabaret Any production of Kander and Ebb’s 1966 Broadway hit would benefit from losing half its score (most of the nonfamous songs stop the action dead while belaboring the obvious), but No Stakes Theater Project’s scrappy staging would do well to ax them all. The collective efforts of director Erin Shea Brady, choreographer Mollyanne Nunn, musical directors Emilie Modaff and Erick Rivera, and a loose four-piece band never successfully put a song across or bring the seedy Kit Kat Klub credibly to the stage....

Closed Sessions honcho Alex Fruchter, aka DJ RTC, is getting married! Those of you who never got a “save the date” card can come to the party at East Room on Thursday, September 3, that the Closed Sessions team is throwing in Fruchter’s honor (if you’re at least 21). The killer lineup of DJs at “RTC’s Last Hurrah” includes Rude One, Manny Muscles, and Closed Sessions producers Odd Couple and Boathouse; Closed Sessions cofounder Michael Kolar will “sing the classics” (whatever that means)....

Q: Fortyish straight white dude here. I have this weird (possibly misogynistic) belief that, when it comes to sex, I can’t win. Actually, I think men in general can’t win. Thoughtful, well-meaning men at least. It comes down to this: During sex, if the man doesn’t come, it’s the man’s fault, because he clearly has problems with his dick and is barely even a man and should be ashamed of himself....

Winter has returned, but luckily there’s plenty to do indoors in the city this weekend. Here’s some of what we recommend: Sat 2/25: Soulful Chicago Black History Book Fair at Lutheran School of Theology (1100 E. 55th), which celebrates the literary arts in the black community and seeks to counter negative stereotypes of Chicago’s south side, features more than 50 black authors, live jazz music, food, and more. 10 AM-6 PM...

JEFF ELBEL / FOR THE SUN-TIMES Adam Lambert is almost as fabulous as Brian May’s hair. A few years ago, when Queen—which presently consists of guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor—toured with Bad Company lead singer Paul Rodgers, the whole affair felt sort of like a nonevent. I don’t have anything against Paul Rodgers insofar as there’s nothing, like, fundamentally wrong with him, but I heard a rumor that they would occasionally play Bad Company songs on that tour, including but not limited to bluesy biker-bar-jukebox jammer “Can’t Get Enough,” and I’m afraid I don’t have any use for that at all....

In 1936, a real-life Indiana Jones type named Sir Flinders Petrie journeyed to Egypt hoping to unearth a pharaoh’s fortune. The British explorer instead ransacked a child’s tomb and discovered evidence of a crude form of bowling dating back at least 5,000 years. It’s no coincidence that when sociologist Robert Putnam tried to sum up his 2000 study on the decline of participatory democracy in America, he titled it Bowling Alone....

Hailing from Ghent, Belgium, Charlotte de Witte began DJing in 2010 under the moniker Raving George—she felt she’d have more of a chance landing gigs using a typically masculine name rather than her own. But as de Witte became a force on the European techno scene, she dropped the pretense. “I didn’t feel the need to hide behind a male alter ego anymore,” she told the online magazine XLR8R in February....

Kirin J Callinan The Chicago International Movies & Music Festival wrapped up last night, and if you didn’t get your fill of live music over the weekend there’s still plenty of shows to see this week. “Guitarist Nels Cline titled the new album by this long-running group Macroscope (Mack Avenue), and more than anything Cline has released in his prolific career, it’s wide-angle music—he operates with the mind-set of a jazz musician while drawing on styles and sounds from all over the map,” writes Peter Margasak....

Nellie “Tiger” Travis is a postmodern blues diva, equal parts sass, class, brazenness, and vulnerability. “Slap Yo’ Weave Off,” from 2008’s I’m a Woman (CDS), is a wickedly satisfying bad-girl throwdown; on the same album, “Don’t Talk to Me” is an anguished breakup song, Travis’s taut vibrato quivering with emotion as she reluctantly kicks her ex to the curb. Her biggest success so far, though, has been last year’s “Mr. Sexy Man”: with a propulsive groove powering an insistent refrain of “What yo’ name is?...

Runner-Up Stacey King, Comcast Sports Net

Sisters of Gion Each Friday, we recommend seven Old Movies to Watch Now, all of which come recommended by one of our critics and can currently be screened online. Read the review, watch the movie, feel accomplished. • Le Grand Amour, Pierre Etax’s finest film.

There’s something to it, I swear Back in March when Toronto-based Greys played Township I made mention of the band’s June 17 debut album dropping on Carpark Records. Well, look at that, June 17 has come and gone and their album If Anything is currently available for consumption. As is the way these days, there were already enough singles and streams to fill you up, because today’s 12 O’Clock Track, “Use Your Delusion” (you get it), was released into the wild in May, with a crush of other teasers following....

Former Shame That Tune cohost, Nerds on Tour podcaster, and Baby Teeth front man Abraham Levitan just wrote Gossip Wolf to say he’s getting back onstage—it’s been five years since he played a full show. He admits he might be having a midlife crisis, and says he’s been writing “insanely specific” songs about fatherhood that could “yank the term ‘dad rock’ into a strange and awkward new dimension.” He’s also hoping to re-form Baby Teeth!...