Mysterious French electronic artist Franck Hueso writes and records under the moniker Carpenter Brut, a pretty blatant homage to the visionary who serves as his musical inspiration. Carpenter Brut’s three EPs, released in 2015 as a single package called Trilogy, comprise creepy instrumental John Carpenter worship full of cinematic, sweeping retro-futuristic synths and eerie, dark atmospherics. Unlike fellow 80s-horror-soundtrack disciples Survive, Carpenter Brut brings in a high-energy funk element, at times reminiscent of Daft Punk or Justice—though Hueso’s samples and song titles focus on crime, violence, and the occult....

A circumcised penis with breasts and wings perches on a pencil above the words “2017 the year you decided to become a political artist.” Made to resemble an eagle, with skin the color of raw chicken, this strange, amusing creation figures in the square-foot drawing titled Reporting Live From the Trenches, by the artist David Leggett. The piece sums up Leggett’s output and attitude: keenly aware of the world and quick with a punch line....

Zola Jesus, aka Seattle-based singer-­songwriter Nika Roza Danilova, has come a long way since the haunting, gloomy, artfully damaged postpunk she started recording at home (and eventually releasing) in the late aughts. The brand-new Taiga is her fifth full-length album, and the first since she departed chic New York indie label Sacred Bones for Mute Records; it’s as much of a culmination of her past work as it is a confident step forward....

Nemec’s A Report on the Party and the Guests screens twice next week. Starting in the mid-1950s, the Soviet Union entered into a period of cultural thaw, easing up on censorship and other repressive practices. Many of the Eastern Bloc nations followed suit, resulting in a flourishing of arts movements. One of the most internationally renowned was the cinematic new wave of Czechoslovakia, which produced works of social satire that would have been impossible during the Stalin era (such as Milos Forman’s The Fireman’s Ball and Ivan Passer’s Intimate Lighting) and more fantastical works that incorporated elements of literary and visual surrealism (like Vera Chytilova’s Fruit of Paradise and Jaromil Jires’s Valerie and Her Week of Wonders)....

Jamie Hayes‘s apartment isn’t one you find perusing Craigslist—her landlady, Vicki Logan, typically only rents through word of mouth. Hayes was fortunate, though, to connect via a friend who was doing historical renovations to the building. And she established an immediate rapport with the space: Logan’s grandmother, who bought the building in 1939, was a seamstress and an activist in the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. Coincidentally, Hayes is a fashion designer and labor-rights activist....

Most of the time, Christmas specials are saccharine to the point of being unwatchable. The same stable of stars sing the same holiday standards in the same disingenuous manner. When I heard that Bill Murray was creating his own holiday special for Netflix with George Clooney and Amy Poehler as guests, I expected more of the same. Thank god Murray left all the warm fuzzies in a snowbank by the side of the road and instead gave us something depressing, bizarre, and entertaining that brings a whole new meaning to what Christmas specials are all about....

Eliza Stoughton www.elizastoughton.com Runner-Up Mary-Kate Arnold

Described on the menu as “absolutely filthy,” chef Alfredo Nogueira’s dirty rice was born out of the dinner parties he and his cohort of Hurricane Katrina evacuees used to throw when they got homesick. Based on a Paul Prudhomme recipe Nogueira tweaked over a summer, the dish incorporates gizzards, ground pork, and chicken liver, all cooked in chicken fat. The end result is a bottomless mineral funk. “It’s made with rice, the trinity (onion, bell pepper, and celery), lots of butter, and a seasoning blend we call Magic (named after Prudhomme’s seasoning blends),” says Nogueira....

When I interviewed writer-director Jerzy Rose last summer, he named Luis Buñuel as a major influence on his second feature, Crimes Against Humanity, which screened at the Gene Siskel Film Center and Doc Films before playing at the Slamdance Film Festival in January. Rose’s admiration for Buñuel makes him practically unique among up-and-coming American independents; nowadays every new filmmaker wants to be John Cassavetes, Terrence Malick, or Michael Haneke. The hero of Crimes Against Humanity, a dean’s assistant at the University of Chicago, becomes convinced there’s a satanist cabal in the ethnomusicology department, and numerous absurd complications follow, many of them quite funny....

Valerie Leonard still lives in the K-town two-flat where she was raised by her father, Theodis Leonard, who was principal of Paderewski Elementary at Lawndale and 22nd Street, and her mother, Essie, a retired teacher. After earning her MBA at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern—and following a stint in New York, where she worked for the Dinkins administration—Leonard returned to Chicago to form the Lawndale Alliance, a community group that has criticized the city for harsh budget cuts that hurt poor neighborhoods....

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place. Older strips are archived here.

There are plenty of shows, films, and concerts happening this week. Here’s some of what we recommend: Wed 8/15: Local shapeshifting post-everything collective Anatomy of Habit debuts a new roster. “Anatomy of Habit has always been an explosive, uncompromising band to watch perform, so it goes without saying that the debut of their current incarnation won’t be one to miss,” writes the Reader’s Luca Cimarusti. 8:30 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N....

Gossip Wolf is a big fan of septuagenarian harmonica player and unsung reggae hero Charles “Organaire” Cameron as well as of Dark Matter coffee—and both turned up in the Reader‘s latest Best of Chicago issue. You can get a dose of them on Sat 8/8 at Double Door: Organaire performs at Simmer Down Sound, a vinyl night dedicated to reggae and dancehall that this time doubles as a release party for Dark Matter’s Pressure Drip, a Jamaican-­inspired coffee the roasters made with Chicago’s Jump Up Records....

title: “429 Too Many Requests” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-30” author: “Roger Quesada”

Moments after the guy at the bar opened his mouth, I feared my infatuation with Nico might shatter. Whatever happened next would have an irreversible effect on the meal to come. No amount of revelatory ragu or beatific branzino would be able to undo the potential damage. Except . . . can rusticity survive in such close proximity to Prada and Hermès, on the ground floor of the Thompson Hotel? It’s a tenuous proposition....

A New Leaf Various locations anewleafchicago.com Runner-Up Asrai Garden

@ChiArchitecture Runner-Up @revbillyschopshop

Bloodshot Records 3039 W. Irving Park Runner-Up Sooper Records

1616 N. Wells 312-337-3992 secondcity.com Runner-Up Improvised Shakespeare