Ants on a log is a good walk spoiled.—Mark Twain Twain sits in an old auto body shop in Logan Square, along the stretch of mostly quality clubs, bars, and restaurants that have sprouted like mushrooms over the last few years in what is subsequently becoming a place to avoid on weekends, when it’s descended upon by people who don’t live in the city, much less the neighborhood. On a large menu to match the sizable 90-seat dining room, Graham indulges in all sorts of improbable-sounding dishes, more than a few of them so unexpectedly successful that you wonder what other secrets the churches and ladies’ clubs of central Missouri have been quietly disseminating among themselves....

Sometimes the lineup of one show seems to sum up the awesomeness of Chicago’s DIY punk scene, and just such a show arrives Saturday, June 17. Gossip Wolf is already in the tank for the tangled, bracing hardcore of the Bug, whose new Humbug seven-inch just dropped via the dependable Not Normal Tapes (run by the band’s singer, Ralph Rivera). Depending on whom you ask, C.H.E.W. stands for “Cold Hands Elicit Worry” or “Cocaine Heroin Ecstasy Weed,” but either way, the D-beat barrages on group’s recent split with Philly punks Penetrode (on California label Neck Chop) put this wolf in a floor-punching mood!...

The goal of the documentary Brewmaster, director Douglas Tirola says, “is to tell the story of the craft beer boom.” It encompasses more than craft beer, though: it also follows Drew Kostick, a New York lawyer trying to start his own brewery, and Brian Reed, a trade brewer for Tenth and Blake who’s studying to become a Master Cicerone. Tenth and Blake is the craft and import division of MillerCoors, and while it includes several craft beer brands—including Pilsner Urquell, which provided funding for the documentary—the company isn’t exactly a microbrewery....

I just wrote about Jute Gyte for In Rotation, only to discover after press deadline that it (or rather he) had released yet another album last week—for a total of 17 full-lengths since 2010. Most of what I said still applies, though: Adam Kalmbach, aka one-man Missouri avant-garde black-metal project Jute Gyte, uses guitars retro­fitted to play 24-tone equal-tempered scales—meaning he’s got twice as many notes in an octave as an ordinary guitarist....

During her lifetime, the artist and educator Barbara DeGenevieve fearless and controversial work was rarely shown. Iceberg Project’s “Medusa’s Cave” is the first exhibition of her art since her passing in August 2014, as well as her first-ever solo show. The exhibition presents many pieces from DeGenevieve’s early career, including a few that have never before been seen. Although many institutions were uncomfortable showing DeGenevieve’s work, the curators at Iceberg Projects gravitated towards it, since they pride themselves on exhibiting work that is controversial, sexually charged, and queer....

2601 N. Milwaukee 773-292-9463 telegraphwinebar.com Runner-Up Rootstock Wine & Beer Bar

To be a “black playwright,” according to Branden Jacobs-Jenkins‘s onstage surrogate, BJJ, is to have every work examined through the lens of racial discord in America, be it relevant or not. Write about farm animals and their feed as an allegory for substance abuse? Must be a deconstructed, modernized African folktale. Ask a Caucasian actor to play a period-appropriate bigot? Must be a personal expression of rage against white society. Use the bathroom?...

Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, amuse, or inspire us. Steve Dykes/Getty Images Watch your head! • About the dangers of “cell extractions”—forcibly removing prisoners from their cells? —Steve Bogira • That a satanist temple is using the Hobby Lobby decision to exempt its members from antichoice laws? —Gwynedd Stuart

A dozen or so people gathered around Cheryl Johnson for a grim kind of story time. Altgeld’s proximity to the southeast side’s slew of factories, landfills, dumps, and polluted waterways has left its residents exposed and vulnerable for more than 30 years. And although Johnson has been preaching this gospel for decades her audience was unexpected. A gaggle of professional environmentalists and longtime community activists were joined by a small handful of bona fide celebrities....

In search of relief from the grim, dog-eat-dog politics of President Trump’s first days in office—oh, how will I survive four years of this?—I’ve gone back in time to revisit the good old days of FDR. “I don’t have Rauner’s money—so I’ll have to outwork him,” Pawar says. “I believe we have to change the narrative in this state. Rauner’s told us that government is the enemy. Just like Trump, Rauner’s played on our differences, pitting one group against another....

As soon as I saw the video of city aviation police dragging David Dao from a United Airlines plane, I said, “It’s a damn shame Dao can’t get Philip Corboy to file his lawsuit.” The case involved a retired Illinois supreme court judge named Thomas Kluczynski and his wife, Melanie, who were bumped from a Delta flight in 1976 because the airline had overbooked the flight. Back then, this case was big news on my beat....

That street art persists in Chicago is a sort of miracle. This is a city with a two-decade-old ban on spray paint, a town in which the Department of Streets and Sanitation will spend nearly $5 million in 2014 to dispatch two-dozen crews every day to paint over or blast pressurized water at pieces. As of the middle of June, Streets and San had removed more than 60,000 works this year....

Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn, 312-443-3800, goodmantheatre.org I first saw Mike Nussbaum act nearly 50 years ago, at Hull House Theater in Lakeview. I was a boy at the time; he was in his early 40s and hadn’t yet quit his day job. As you probably know, he eventually did, and—thanks mainly to his role in the Goodman’s 1984 debut of Glengarry Glen Ross, the Pulitzer Prize winner by another Hull House alum, David Mamet—became a late-blooming success on Broadway and in movies like Men in Black....

Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images John Baker after fanning in the first game Saturday When the Cubs won five straight early in June, we began to lose confidence in them. We’ve been tracking the team’s campaign to honor Wrigley Field’s 100th birthday with a 100-loss season, and the winning streak put that noble effort in jeopardy. David Banks/Getty Images Starlin Castro after whiffing in the second game Dropping 100 is a daunting challenge even for a franchise like the Cubs....

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images Neil Tesser accepting his Grammy The applause that broke out as Neil Tesser accepted his Grammy Award puzzled me a little—and, as he told me later, surprised Tesser as well. He was taking the occasion to say a few words on behalf of the category he won in—album liner notes—and if the words rang, they also sounded self-evident. “It seems a lot of people remember reading these back-of-the-disc essays and learning from them,” he replied, “and that they miss the fact that music downloads and streaming, which are the preferred methods of consuming music these days, contain no information about the songs or albums—not even the personnel or recording statistics....

courtesy of Harvestworks Phyllis Chen The first time I heard pianist Phyllis Chen a few years ago, she convinced me of the toy piano’s potential as a serious instrument, and with her most recent album, The Little Things (New Focus), she demonstrates just how broad that potential is.

In 1980, a couple years before Shedrick Yarkpai was born, a master sergeant named Samuel Doe led a coup against Liberian president William Tolbert Jr., executing Tolbert and his entire cabinet. In 1990 Doe was executed in his turn by forces under the command of Charles Taylor. Yarkpai was a child at that point, living with his mother in the Liberian capital, Monrovia. There followed a civil war that’s reported to have displaced a million people and killed anywhere from 200,000 to 600,000....

The title character of Aditi Brennan Kapil‘s Brahman/I is a stand-up comic of ambiguous sexuality—ambiguous, at least, insofar as Anglo-American norms are concerned, there being no viable “other” classification to round out “male” and “female.” Born with bonus genitals, this Georgia-reared child of Indian immigrants (favored nickname “B”) lived as a boy until puberty started working its magic on him, at which point he found himself opting for makeup and saris....