Odds Against Tomorrow Each Friday, we recommend seven Old Movies to Watch Now, all of which come recommended by one of our critics and can currently be screened online. Read the review, watch the movie, feel accomplished. • Hombre, Martin Ritt’s adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel.
If the Reader‘s Key Ingredient series has demonstrated anything, it’s the undying appeal of the swoosh for today’s chefs. More dishes than not these days start with a bit of sauce or some other substance, schmeared across the plate. So when an order of octopus came out of the kitchen at Andersonville’s the Brixton on a plate spattered from edge to edge with an explosion of black squid-ink goo, it was startling....
Oksana Douglas wants you to take your time at Chicago Diplomat Cafe, the city’s—and perhaps the state’s—only restaurant devoted to the feasting foods of the Republic of Georgia. Pomegranate juice marinates the mtsvadi, bite-size pieces of grilled chicken, pork, or lamb served with thick wedged fries, all to be dipped in the sweet-sour plum sauce known as tkemali. Correction: This review has been amended to correctly reflect the chef-owner’s name, which is Oksana rather than Oskana Douglas, and the name of the khachapuri with raw egg, which is ajaruli rather than imeruli....
You’ve heard this one a million times before: when your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. As an observation on obstacles and how we confront them, it’s a two-penny insight. But it cuts deeper. What we like to think of as our store of worldly wisdom might be no more than a bag of reflexes based on intriguing scraps of learning collected as we reached the age of reason....
Ken Redeker The Chicago Park District received $120,000 to allow the PNC bank branch to set up in Grant Park. How much is a piece of Grant Park worth? The question looms after officials turned over a slice of the park to a private company for $120,000. “The Chicago Park District seeks creative ways to raise revenue to support its parks and programs in neighborhoods throughout the city,” Jessica Maxey-Faulkner, a spokeswoman for the district, wrote in an e-mail....
Here’s what’s supposed to shock us about Edward Albee’s much-acclaimed The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?: Martin, a successful, privileged, happily married family man, has fallen in love with a goat and fucks it regularly. But here’s what shocks me: that Albee imagines we should care about this jerk. It’s not Martin’s hircine proclivities that render him wholly unsympathetic. In this heightened upper-middle-class world, which veers inconsistently in and out of absurdity, bestiality is merely emblematic of taboo sexual practices and identities, writ so large the point can’t be missed....
The Sponsored Artist Program at Chicago’s High Concept Labs supports working artists in a range of disciplines for four months at a time, providing free equipment, logistical support, and access to HCL’s space in Mana Contemporary’s Pilsen warehouse at 2233 S. Throop. Each program ends with a send-off event at HCL, and on Friday, February 24, guitarist and composer Cinchel (aka Jason Shanley) takes his turn, hosting the site-specific performance Walking Into an Unfamiliar Place You Already Know....
Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago.
The 606 www.the606.org @The606Chicago Runner-Up North Branch Trail
Randolph & Lake Shore 708-482-4300 3rdcoastcruising.com Runner-Up Lucky Dog Sailing
Chicago hasn’t had a working vinyl-pressing plant for at least 20 years. The last one was allegedly shut down by the FBI in the 90s for making bootleg 78 RPM records to sell in India. The presses from that facility, acquired in 2003 by Chicagoan Joell Hays, sat dormant in a local warehouse after Hays failed to find investors to get his own plant up and running. By the time Quality Record Pressings, run by Chad Kassem in Salina, Kansas, bought them in 2015, the machines were in wretched shape—rusted, clogged, and missing parts....
With a light roster of 36 arrestees and a courtroom full of reporters, legal observers, and advocates (as well a sprinkling of defendants’ loved ones), Cook County’s central bond court yesterday eased into its first day of operation under a new directive: By order of Chief Judge Timothy Evans, judges are to consider a defendant’s financial circumstances when setting bail. In addition to rolling out the new procedure, Evans also created a new division of judges to handle bond court proceedings....
Denise LaSalle’s specialty is still telling it like it is. The veteran blues singer usually aims her earthy lyrics and sassy onstage patter straight at the women in the audience—and when it comes to talking about the kind of romantic entanglements she knows those women deal with, she doesn’t pull any punches. LaSalle burned up the 70s R&B charts with steamy southern soul, then shifted to blues in 1982 after signing with Malaco Records from Jackson, Mississippi....
Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. • How poetry is doing better on the Internet? —Sue Kwong
AP Photo/Universal Pictures, Atsushi Nishijima This guy’s characters have killed a lot of people in a lot of different places. Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, amuse, or inspire us. • That the Finkl steel plant in Lincoln Park will be demolished? —Tal Rosenberg • About the filming of the Hot Doug’s movie? —Brianna Wellen
Brian DeRan Panda Bear Tonight marks the official opening of Thalia Hall, the joint Pilsen venture between Bruce Finkelman of the Empty Bottle and Craig Golden of Evanston’s SPACE. I’ve seen the theater in various states of decrepitude at various times over the last few years, but on my last visit a few months ago its innate beauty had emerged. And I’ve heard good things about the space’s test run last week, a private show by Disappears....
At Berkeley It’s January, which means it’s time for “Stranger Than Fiction,” the Gene Siskel Film Center’s annual showcase of new documentaries. In this week’s Reader, we review two movies in the program, The Harvey Girls: Opportunity Bound and Kiss the Water (the second feature by Eric Steel, director of The Bridge). We also review Liv and Ingmar, a documentary about Ingmar Bergman’s on- and offscreen relationship with actress Liv Ullmann, which plays at the Siskel all week....
Time to plan the weekend. Here’ s some of what we recommend: Sat 12/5: Krampusfest at Martyrs’ (3855 N. Lincoln) is a seasonal tribute to Santa’s evil counterpart, Krampus. The daylong event includes live music, an art fair, a pub crawl, and the traditional Krampuslauf parade. Noon-8 PM
Having studied composition in Poland in the 1990s and written extensively for chamber groups, soloists, and orchestras, Argentine sound artist Andrea Pensado has moved over time toward a more intuitive, improvisational approach that dispenses with theoretical niceties. Based in the Boston area since 2002, Pensado has played in a number of loose-limbed projects, and her give-and-take impulses—harsh electronic bloops and high-frequency squalls mix with live instruments in a free-jazz manner—are evident in the trio Los Condenados, whose 2013 album Yeppers!...
