Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Thursday, May 4, 2017. Rahm promises to block the sale of the Thompson Center Mayor Rahm Emanuel has vowed that he will block the state from selling the Thompson Center in the Loop until he’s sure that local taxpayers won’t have to pay for rebuilding the CTA station below the building. “I’m not going to stick that tab on Chicago taxpayers,” the mayor said at an event Tuesday....

JIM NEWBERRY Beau Wanzer is the one with the pot on his head. Local electronic wiz and synth (and chili) enthusiast Beau Wanzer keeps turning out tracks as part of Streetwalker and Mutant Beat Dance, and he’s always working away on his solo postindustrial dance cuts. In fact, Wanzer just dropped his self-titled debut LP, which culls together songs he put together between 2002 and 2008. Beau Wanzer is only available on vinyl (though you can listen to some samples of it online), so today’s 12 O’Clock Track‘s is an older number from Wanzer: “Balls of Steel,” which is off a self-titled EP that chic label Long Island Electrical Systems (better known as L....

1462 N. Milwaukee 773-661-2468 thewormhole.us Runner-Up David Packer of Metropolis Coffee

Few Chicagoans know as much about local government as Lyle Benedict. The 57-year-old can tell you when the City Council slimmed down from 70 aldermen to 50 (1923). He knows the role of the vice mayor (“To wait for the mayor to die”). He can even explain the property tax multiplier. For 31 years, Benedict has fielded questions about the workings and history of Chicago government, first for the municipal reference library on the tenth floor of City Hall, then, after the city shut down that operation in 1993, at the Harold Washington Library Center....

Speedy Ortiz Tomorrow night the National kick off their four-night stand at the Chicago Theatre—every performance is sold out but there are plenty of other opportunities to see some great shows. “For the past ten years Justin Broadrick has made music as Jesu, combining warm shoegaze with wall-of-sound postmetal. Jesu records are so lush and beautiful that it’s easy to forget you’re listening to the same guy who spent the late 80s and all of the 90s fronting pioneering industrial-metal act Godflesh, one of the most brutal bands ever to exist,” writes Luca Cimarusti....

1459 W. Irving Park 773-549-1594 deluxetattoo.com Runner-Up Esther Garcia at Butterfat

There are plenty of shows, films, and concerts happening this week. Here’s some of what we recommend:

Gossip Wolf is sad to report that Phillip Pelipada—better known to Chicago’s dance-music community as Phil Free Art—died last week at age 44. Pelipada was well-known in town for his inimitable positivity, for giving out copies of his intricately hand-drawn rave zine, Free Art, and for DJing scorching sets of house, freestyle, and jungle in clubs and on Vocalo and WHPK, among other places. Pelipada posted several DJ sets to Mixcloud—this wolf is particularly fond of “Do I Still Play Hardcore,” an expert blend of pile-driving mid-90s happy hardcore and gabber....

Well, that was fast. What happened to snatch the bus from the jaws of death? “Over the last couple of days we’ve had some discussions in which we’ve identified some potential new avenues of support in the community, which could consist of financial support or something to help boost ridership,” Steele said. “So instead of just shutting it down, we felt the best thing to do was to continue service in the near future....

Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. Hey, did you read: That cats may still, deep down in their tiny feline hearts, be wild creatures? —Aimee Levitt

Rich Hein/Sun-Times Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House in Plano: The details are crucial. As Mies van der Rohe said, “God is in the details.” But is God in every last petty detail? As Mies might not have said, but just about everybody else has at one time or another, “Picky, picky.” (What if it is!) Give me a break! That’s a wonderful lyric. The instant we hear it we know what Hart meant by unphotographable....

Throughout his career omnivorous trumpeter and composer Dave Douglas has deployed his innate curiosity as a calling card. While he’s had certain bedrock bands, like the excellent quintet he brings to town this week, he also pours his energy into a steady profusion of disparate projects. His output from 2016—all of it on his own Greenleaf imprint—was remarkable in this regard. In April he dropped Dark Territory, the cohesive second album by his liquid quartet High Risk, on which the propulsive grooves of drummer Mark Guiliana and muscular electric bass of Jonathan Maron support both the leader’s lyric, high-energy blowing and the fluid electronic ambience and fractal patterns of dance-music producer Shigeto....

bloodshotrecords.com Runner-Up Red Scare Industries

COURTESY ILLINOIS HOLOCAUST MUSEUM A wounded refugee from the Exodus (1947) Take a gander at something visually stimulating this weekend. Here’s what’s going down in visual arts. John Macfarlane at Maya Polsky Gallery Drawings on paper by the costume designer, including work from his recent and future contributions to Lyric Opera Chicago. Reception 5-7:30 PM. “Our Work: Modern Jobs—Ancient Origins” at the Oriental Institute The closing day of an exhibit featuring photos of modern-day workers posing with ancient relics from their trades....

ARTIST: Josh Davis SHOW: Kool Keith and Bushwick Bill at Logan Arcade on Fri 12/21 MORE INFO: deadmeatdesign.bigcartel.com

For this year’s Reader Key Ingredient Cook-Off, we asked some of Chicago’s top chefs to create a dish to honor a person who influenced their cooking. The exercise stirred many kitchen memories. Dish: Prawns and “tater tots”

There’s blown-out, treble-loaded garage punk and then there’s Teengenerate. The Tokyo foursome’s too short heyday between ’93 ad ’96 yielded greatness in the form of raucous, pogo-ready punk, most notably found on the supreme genius of their Get Action LP, released by Crypt Records in 1994. Today’s 12 O’Clock Track, “Mess Me Up,” is the album’s opener and is full of so much reckless energy—heard not only through the distorted everything but more specifically via the walking bass lines and bouncing percussion....

The new documentary An Honest Living, which screens tomorrow night and again next Thursday at the Siskel Center, is not just a portrait of four individuals, but a love letter to our city’s arts community. Its subjects have pursued their creative interests for years while holding down steady day jobs. At some point, each one admits to wishing they didn’t have to deal with the daily grind—but then, who doesn’t? All of them are happy that they get to make art at all, and it’s this sentiment that dominates the movie....

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