Cheese-wheel wedding cakes have been a thing for at least a few years, but for me they’ve always existed in some photo-filtered Pinterest fairyland. So I was adrenalized when my friends Tim and Pat asked me to help put one together for their nuptials. It couldn’t have been easier. The first person I thought of was cheese whiz Giles Schnierle of the Great American Cheese Collection, the 13-year-old wholesale distributor that focuses on small American producers....

Ramen Runner-Up Poke

“CM Punk! CM Punk! CM Punk!” “Don’t you know it isn’t real?” The real children in attendance were mostly there to watch Cena, the WWE’s most kid-friendly star. His trademark “U Can’t See Me” hats and wristbands were rampant in youth sizes all throughout the arena, and when the oldsters began to chant “John Cena sucks,” the kids’ shrill “Let’s go Cena!” response was almost as loud. It’s a hostile environment, in retrospect....

AP Photo/Bill Kostroun The Cubs couldn’t get their bats to cooperate yesterday in Yankee Stadium. Ryan Kalish disposes of his after fanning in the fifth inning of game two. ​The Cubs played a doubleheader in Yankee Stadium yesterday, all for naught. ​Eighteen naughts. ​Managers often ask their lineups to put up a crooked number in an inning, meaning more than ​a single run; the north​-siders instead produced a long string of round ones....

Over the last year we’ve looked on with horror at a half-dozen cases in Europe and New York City in which assailants have used trucks and cars as deadly weapons to intentionally injure and kill large numbers of innocent people on foot. In the wake of these awful events, it makes sense to reduce the chance of this kind of attack happening in Chicago. In the past, city, county, state, and federal authorities installed vehicle-resistant barriers around buildings and plazas that could be targets, and after a truck assault on a Berlin Christmas market last December, the Chicago police staked out the Christkindlmarket in Daley Plaza....

Riot Fest is stirring up nostalgia in a lot of people this year—and I’m no exception. When I saw Dashboard Confessional on the lineup it was like getting smacked right across the face with my high school binder covered in hand-scribbled lyrics to “Screaming Infidelities.” Revisiting The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most, the album that was responsible for all my deep teenage emotions (with a capital E-M-O), it’s pretty silly to imagine my 14-year-old self feeling so connected to songs that were about painful breakups and extreme loneliness when the most traumatic thing that had ever happened to me was missing the school bus....

On a recent Saturday morning in Veterans Park on the far southeast side, Olga Bautista crouched on the bocce court drawing lines in the sand with a stick. Eighteen girls, ranging in age from three to 18, sat on a bench, watching. “This is Torrance Avenue,” she said, pointing at the line down the middle, “and this is 95th, and over here’s 100th. That’s South Deering, and there’s Jeffery Manor. I grew up over there....

In 2005, when Anthony Hirschel was just starting his job as director of the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art, the little academic institution was poised for a big expansion. This week the university finally announced Hirschel’s successor: Alison Gass, currently chief curator and associate director for exhibitions and collections at Stanford University’s Cantor Arts Center, will be the new Smart Museum director. Gass will start at the Smart May 1....

The beloved bar and nightclub Danny’s Tavern may close at the end of the month after nearly 30 years in Bucktown, according to managing owner Kevin Stacy. “They just want to kick us out and tear it down. What we don’t get is why they won’t sell it to us, because another business is not going to move in here,” Stacy continues. “We own the liquor license. Once it stops being Danny’s it stops being anything except for a teardown....

Saxophonist and composer Laura Toxvaerd has been on the Danish jazz scene since the turn of the century, but she isn’t nearly as well-known as she deserves to be. Last year Toxvaerd released three equally powerful albums with three different combos—including Pladeshop, a trio recording featuring dazzling pianist Simon Toldam and veteran drummer Marilyn Mazur. Each effort has its own sound, but Toxvaerd’s grainy, biting tone is constant across the three records, whether she’s delivering tender balladry or blowing jagged phrases that knife across the sound field....

Chicago-based MC Smino did a lot of singing on his 2017 debut album, Blkswn, but on his imminent sophomore album, Noir, he seems much more interested in reminding his fans that he can rap. Keeping with tradition, Smino has used this album of smooth beats and swift bars to uplift other artists in his circle. It includes features from Dreezy, Valee, Ravyn Lenae, Bari, and Jay2—the last three are all members of the Zero Fatigue collective Smino cofounded, which is based in Chicago and his old hometown of Saint Louis....

The first rule of Meow Meetup: When other attendees ask about your Instagram, it’s a trick question. What they’re inquiring about isn’t you—sorry, human—it’s your cat’s social media presence. But what kind of emperors will these tiny carnivorous mammals make? I must admit that, as a brand-new owner of a kitten, I left the meet-up feeling a bit insecure. Remember when ownership was mostly a matter of taking care of your cat’s sustenance, shelter, litter box, and in exchange for—if you’re lucky—some affection?...

Given the cynicism and ugliness of the recent box-office hits The Hitman’s Bodyguard, Annabelle: Creation, and Wind River, the current rerelease of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) feels like a welcome breath of fresh air. Justly celebrated for its warmth and sincerity, Close Encounters shames most contemporary blockbusters for their lack of heart and imagination. The film envisions human contact with extraterrestrial life as a celebratory event; the characters’ efforts to understand the strange life-forms—through scientific inquiry, culture, and curiosity—represent the best of humankind....

On Thursday morning conservative political operative and media owner Dan Proft responded to my recent Bleader post criticizing his string of community newspapers with this blistering tweet: A blog devoted to “Touhey’s of the World” nails Ellsworth’s character. He’s a “master schemer and manipulator” who “represents the stifling, decadent forces of Communalism and Socialism.” The blog recalls a telling confrontation from The Fountainhead between Toohey and Rand’s hero, the visionary architect Howard Roark....

If the names Brandi Denise and Kellye Howard sound familiar, it’s because they’re two of the hardest-working stand-ups in town, regularly featured in lineups around Chicago. But now the comics have paired up to show their fans more of their talents, and in the process introduce new audiences to local performers who don’t often leave the north side. Because they run their own show Denise and Howard have the power to play whomever they want, regardless of gender or race....

If there was ever a place that made me wish the Reader rated restaurants on a four-star scale, it’s A10, Matthias Merges’s much-anticipated foray into Hyde Park. I’m tempted to hold A10 to both a higher and a lower standard. Higher because Merges has not only Charlie Trotter’s on his resumé but Yusho, his spunky izakaya in Avondale, and Billy Sunday, a bespoke cocktail bar in Logan Square. Lower because the bar has been set depressingly low in Hyde Park, a destination that cries out for the quality restaurants found in those northwest-side hoods....

More than 30 years in, progressive-metal legends Neurosis know exactly how to deliver—their 11th studio album, last fall’s Fires Within Fires (Neurot), is a ruthlessly efficient travelogue of varied soundscapes and altered consciousness. It feels much longer than it actually is (about 40 minutes), and that’s not a function of tedium but of density. The claustrophic and ominous crushing weights of “Bending Light” and “Fire Is the End Lesson” give way to the unsettling atmospherics of the intro to “Broken Ground,” and if you have the ominous feeling you’re being set up for something, you’re right—that song and “Reach” build to a sort of apocalyptic climax not too far removed from a Swans or Psychic TV incantation....

Cantina de la Granja Ceviche from a Cantina de la Granja preview Mark Robertson co-owns the GLBT sports bar Crew Bar & Grill in Uptown, and SoFo Tap in Andersonville. But he grew up on a farm, and dreamed of having a place in the city that better reflected where food really comes from in the midwest. Chef Diana Davida was part of a restaurant group in D.C. that included a hipster taqueria, but despite her Mexican-American heritage, she mainly made American and continental food....

The six-way intersection of Grace, Bernard, and Elston in the Irving Park community is a tricky junction. Located just west of the Abbey Pub, it’s a relatively wide roadway where the two residential streets meet up with a busy northwest-southeast thoroughfare. Observing her afternoon shift last week, I was impressed by Ana’s grit as she marched into the street with her handheld stop sign, taking no guff from drivers who failed to halt....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Tuesday, June 20, 2017. Report: Less than a quarter of Chicago teens attend their neighborhood high schools Less than a quarter of Chicago students attend their neighborhood public high school, according to a report by DNAinfo Chicago. In 2007, almost 45 percent of Chicago teens went to their neighborhood Chicago Public Schools high school. The numbers show a dramatic shift toward selective enrollment Chicago Public Schools and private schools....