Ryne San Hamel, the motorist who killed cyclist Bobby Cann in a May 2013 crash while driving roughly twice the speed limit with a blood-alcohol level also about double the legal limit, was sentenced at a hearing in late January. After pleading guilty to reckless homicide and aggravated DUI but before being sentenced, San Hamel addressed Cann’s family to provide a tearful—and graphic—account of trying to save the cyclist’s life....
Drive Like Jehu drummer Mark Trombino has had a long and successful career as a producer and engineer since that San Diego band split up in 1995—among his many accomplishments, he’s recorded platinum-selling albums by the likes of Blink-182 and Jimmy Eat World. But in summer 2013, he opened a shop called Donut Friend in Los Angeles, which sells specialty doughnuts named punningly after bands: Jets to Basil, Yo La Mango, Stiff Little Butterfingers, X-Ray Speculoos....
“Have you ever had sake?” a server asked as I scanned the beverage menu. It was an early evening, early in the week at Ani, a new, modest Japanese restaurant from Ty and Troy Fujimara, the siblings who own Wicker Park’s great sushi restaurant Arami (and Small Bar). It’s that California-grown grain, also served at Arami, that elevates this sushi, and other dishes at Ani, beyond the standard neighborhood chop-shop product....
Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Friday, April 21, 2017. Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts withdraws his nomination from the Trump administration Chicago Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts, who was nominated by President Donald Trump to be deputy commerce secretary, has withdrawn his nomination from consideration for the job. Ricketts “could not unravel the overlapping family holdings that obviously include the Cubs” even though he was willing to, a source told the Sun-Times....
In a 2015 Radio One Chicago interview, Chicago rapper Solo Sam talked about making his first mixtape his freshman year at Valparaiso University—he was on the school’s football team, but an injury had taken him off the field. That 2012 mixtape, Off Season, included a telling line in the track “New Dope”: “Real talk, man / I do this as a hobby.” These days Sam sounds less modest and more self-assured....
At a press conference Monday, Chance the Rapper announced his donation of $1 million to Chicago Public Schools, but despite the widespread coverage of the story since, most reporting has missed the opportunity to point out how heavily Chance had invested in education even before his meeting with Governor Rauner. The New York Times mentioned his “philanthropic and civic engagement,” focusing on election-cycle activities such as the voter-registration drive at Magnificent Coloring Day and the early-voting event Parade to the Polls....
Asafetida is derived from the Latin foetida, which means “foul-smelling.” Challenged by Jonathan Van Herik of Rainbo Club to create a cocktail with the pungent spice, made from the dried sap of the roots of the giant fennel plant, Aaron Dexter of the Owl says, “It’s that kind of funky rotted-garlic smell. It’s really powerful. “It’s not bad,” Dexter concluded. “I did the best I could with the ingredient I was given....
There’s plenty to do this weekend (and that ain’t no April Fools’ Day joke). Here’s some of what we recommend: Sun 4/2: Each week during Drop Leaf Dinners at Sportsman’s Club (948 N. Western) someone from the community—including Jane Beachy (Salonathon), Pearl Dick (Project Fire), and Nikki Zaleski (Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health)—serves up a pot of their favorite soup along with a glass of Middle Brow and Sportsman’s Club beer collaboration, Little Lou....
You might want to write this down. Carol Marin is leaving the Sun-Times, staying at WTTW and at WMAQ-TV, and joining DePaul University, which is where her offices have been for the past 12 years. Marin’s last column as a contract writer for the Sun-Times will run on December 13, though editor in chief Jim Kirk has told her she’s welcome to contribute to the paper whenever she wants to after that, and Marin isn’t saying no to the possibility....
Chicago rapper Adamn Killa knows his approach is unorthodox. On his new album, I Am Adamn, he begins standout track “Roof Roof” by imagining how people might criticize his style on the mike: “If I was you I would hate me too / The way I sing it sound like Hebrew / Making all that noise like a mongoose.” Adamn half-sings these self-caricaturing lines in such a soporific slur that I occasionally have to pause the song and go back to make sure I’ve understood him....
Chicago rapper-producer Valee Taylor, who records and performs under his first name, talks a big game. If you believe the claims in his breakthrough single, “Shell,” he’s the kind of guy who walks through luxury-brand stores like a master gamer let loose in an arcade with a backpack weighed down by quarters—he’s effortless and in full acknowledgment of his own abundance. But as much as Valee raps about excess, his strength is his brevity....
No matter where you land on the Joss Whedon fan spectrum—whether you socialized among the Bronze, the online community of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans, in a past Internet life, or just loved The Avengers—there’s something for you in Amy Pascale’s new bio of the cult-magnet screenwriter and director. Even big Jossheads might be surprised by the candid, exhaustively researched interviews with Whedon, who reveals some previously unearthed gems, such as his vision for his never-realized Wonder Woman movie, in which he reimagined the superhero’s introduction to our world as an adolescent rite of passage....
thestylerookie.com Runner-Up Refinery29.com/Chicago
Vacation Club I’ve commented in the past about Indianapolis’s unexpectedly amazing underground scene, and on a recent visit there, on my way to SXSW, I was again reminded of how great the city’s bands really are. Today’s 12 O’Clock Track is “Chip Taylor Nitemare” by Vacation Club, a psychedelic garage band who seem to dominate the Indy punk scene. The songs are catchy and expansive, full of jangly guitars and spacey harmonies, but they never get too dreamy—the band is high energy and fun, perfectly blending heady psych with a punk-rock attitude....
When Charlie Trotter alum Matthias Merges opened the playful, yakitori-inspired restaurant Yusho in Avondale a little more than two years ago, it was pioneerish; the most notable cuisines in the hood at the time were hot dogs and hamburgers (damn fine ones, but still). More predictable, though no less thoughtful or delicious, was his early 2013 follow-up: the craft-cocktail outpost Billy Sunday, just up the street in Logan Square. Merges’s next venture—nearly 80 blocks south, in Hyde Park—was another pioneering effort, his most ambitious so far....
Chandler West/Sun-Times Media National pundits don’t understand why Chicagoans aren’t falling for Mayor Rahm Emanuel. I’d like to take a moment to show a little love for Maggie Haberman, a senior political reporter for Politico, who’s apparently the first national pundit to make the startling discovery that Chicagoans don’t like Mayor Rahm Emanuel. I’m still wondering how New York Times columnist David Brooks got that baby past the copy desk....
