Love haunted houses but wish they had a plot? Join the action of these immersive performances instead. To celebrate the centennial of Mary Shelley’s classic novel, four theater companies are putting their own spin on Frankenstein. Two are currently running through November: Remy Bumppo presents Shelley’s classic from the creature’s perspective (and Nick Sandys and Greg Matthew Anderson alternate in the roles of the doctor and the monster), while Lifeline Theatre turns Frankenstein Freudian and female....

Last Wednesday I noted what a strong week it had been for Chicago hip-hop, even though it wasn’t entirely finished, and the day after that I got stuck on new tracks from, among others, Ibn Inglor (“Belief”), Lucki Ecks (“Boomin’”), Chief Keef (“Save Me”), and Chris Crack (“DopePussyMoney”). February’s shaping up to be quite a month for local rap. Just yesterday west-side group Sicko Mobb dropped the glittering bop cut “Pump Fakin’,” and iTunes began streaming Rick Ross’s Mastermind, which includes a track produced by Kanye West and LA ratchet king DJ Mustard called “Sanctified”—the track’s so great it even makes Big Sean’s generally unexceptional rapping sound somewhat decent....

3324 N. California 773-279-9550 hotdougs.com Runner-Up Superdawg

“What’s old is new again” has always been a fashion shibboleth, but it sprang to life with the Wrigley Building’s recent renovation. The shimmering bright-white landmark, designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White and informed by the Giralda Tower in Seville, became the Mag Mile’s first statement piece when William Wrigley Jr.’s team finished the second tower in 1924. Fast-forward many packs of chewing gum and one ugly metal-and-glass wall later to 2011, when the abused old building parted ways with its namesake company and was scooped up by an investor group including the cofounders of Groupon....

Courtesy Wikicommons Morrissey: Definitely not on Twitter Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, amuse, or inspire us. • About art performances that are actually supposed to put the audience to sleep? —Aimee Levitt • That Morrissey’s twitter account is actually a fake? (And Twitter verified it anyway.) —Brianna Wellen

Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images Adam Dunn: He’s a pitcher now. Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, amuse, or inspire us. • Rep. Jan Shakowsky on living for a week on minimum wage? —Tony Adler • About the enduring appeal of Weird Al Yankovic? —Aimee Levitt

Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. • That police chief Garry McCarthy is a cochair of a large group of law enforcement leaders pledging to join the effort to reduce the U.S. incarceration rate? —Steve Bogira • About a very convincing parody article claiming that Yelp is suing South Park for lampooning them? —Tal Rosenberg

Don’t pretend you’re immune—social media have hypnotized too many of us into interacting with one another in the forms of tweets, likes, and comments. But there are downsides as well as upsides to their spell, some of which are on display in ComedySportz’s new improv show The Social Musical, which utilizes Twitter for inspiration. Prior to the show, each member of the audience is handed an instruction card with the show’s Twitter handle (@social_musical) and a list of suggestions the players are seeking (categories, lines of dialogue, places, etc)....

Rich Hein / Sun-Times Media Appellate Judge Richard Posner: daring the Supreme Court to disagree with his ruling that same-sex marriage bans are irrational and senseless. Last Saturday I went to two weddings. It was a beautiful day and they made me so happy I was ready for two more. Illinois is one of 19 states in which gay marriage is legal, but that’s only been true since June. In Wisconsin, meanwhile, a constitutional ban on gay marriage was ratified by voters in 2006....

It’s easier than ever to be a futurist. Simply imagine what life will be like when driverless cars take over our streets and highways. Noah Smith, who’s a professor of finance at Stony Brook University, took a run at the question in an essay for Bloomberg reprinted Thursday as an op-ed in the Tribune. If all this sounds like deja vu to the attentive reader, Smith admits that it is. “You’ll notice that all of these are basically continuations of problems we’ve already seen in the U....

American Hwangap The Korean tradition of celebrating hwangap, a 60th birthday, provides an opportunity to reflect on one’s legacy and appreciate the blessings of a life long-lived; it’s also a recipe for a postmidlife crisis. For Min Suk Chun, a Korean immigrant who abandoned his wife and three children to move back to South Korea from Texas, the milestone is decidedly the latter. With the permission of his estranged wife, Chun returns to the States for a reunion, albeit an icy one....

Cherry Circle Room 12 S. Michigan Runner-Up Gene & Georgetti Restaurant

When I was 12, I got my period one morning right before I left for school. I told my mom, she handed me a pad, and then we never really talked about it again. I was confused, scared and had a million questions but I understood this topic was not to be openly discussed to avoid making the men in my family uncomfortable. Pilsen native and president of the nonprofit Chicago Period Project Ashley Novoa has a similar story and says her introduction to her period was also scary and deemed an off-limits topic by her mother....

Coming soon there’s a new Jim Jarmusch film called Kissing Vampires, starring Tilda Swinton, and I can’t wait to see it—c’mon, a Jarmusch vampire movie with Tilda Swinton? When I think of Jarmusch I sometimes think of Lies to Live By, one of the many records I’ve sold during periodic purges of my collection—that decision still stings. These days some of us have heard the director’s satisfying guitar duets with Jozef Van Wissem, but for me his best work as a musician was with the Del-Byzanteens, the band responsible for the 1982 album I hawked when I was a dumb college student....

Friday, May 9, 7-10 PM The winners of the 2014 Key Ingredient Cook-Off, as determined by an audience vote, were: Aaron Arnett, Davanti Enoteca (honeycomb tripe) Barry Sorkin, Smoque (tamarind) Meg Galus, NoMi Kitchen (sheep’s milk) Andrew Deuel, Tesori (chestnut flour) Abraham Conlon, Fat Rice (miso) Judges’ choice for best in show:Duncan Biddulph, Kinmont (tamarind) Participating chefs Aaron Arnett of Davanti Enoteca (Watch Arnett cook with green peppercorns) Dana Cree of Blackbird (Check out Cree sweetening up pine sap)...

I was running errands Saturday and distracted, so when I hit the Fullerton-Pulaski intersection it took me a moment to figure out what was going on. A man with a walker and several full shopping bags had apparently begun crossing the street a few feet outside of the crosswalk and then stopped. A man, in other words, with a host of complicated accoutrements was standing, for no discernible reason, in the middle of a chaotic intersection....

No one makes cop movies like David Ayer. Born in Champaign but raised on the streets of LA’s South Central, he understands what makes policemen tick, so his screenplays always accumulate some emotional weight even when the situations consist of standard action-movie machismo. Most people know him for the hit thriller Training Day (2001), with Denzel Washington as a corrupt LAPD narcotics detective giving a bitter education to rookie cop Ethan Hawke....

Thank goodness for Elizabeth Harris, who under the name Cupcakke gleefully throws a wrench in the gears of hip-hop. For a couple years now the Greater Grand Crossing MC has challenged what we’ve come to accept as the norm for female rappers, Chicago rappers, and female Chicago rappers, with raunchy songs and wry rhymes that hit hard. Cupcakke has become a sharper writer since dropping her breakout viral hit, “Vagina,” in October 2015, and in the process she’s accumulated a sizable fan base while doubling down on her freaky pop persona....