It was high noon in late June in Chinatown on the first really swampy day of the summer. There were a few customers at Lao Sze Chuan. There was nobody in the new Korean barbecue joint except three fat, sweaty white guys. And who the hell could even think of eating in any of the dozen or so hot-pot joints on a day like that? “The method of manipulating ice cream on a cold surface had been around for a long time....
On a crisp morning in early November, attorney Dan Herbert, dressed in a blue suit and red tie, a thick, worn manila folder in hand and a razor nick drying on his chin, strides up the steps of the Leighton Criminal Courthouse on the corner of 26th and California. Inside, his client Jason Van Dyke—who was caught on video shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times—stands awkwardly in line for the metal detector, his aging father by his side....
ABC Marcus is the most boring man alive—but Clare don’t care! I’m about halfway through I Didn’t Come Here to Make Friends, a memoir and shoo-in for the Pulitzer by Bachelor villain and season 16 “winner” Courtney Robertson (cowritten by an actual writer person). It’s full of enlightening tidbits, for instance that a psychologist—the same one who administers a 150 question personality test during an advanced stage of the audition process—always travels with the show and “is a permanent fixture on set....
2956 S. Wallace, 773-742-8782 Far be it from me to tell Diane von Furstenberg how to design a dress, but the purple silk number I got for like six bucks at a thrift store a few months ago just didn’t work for me. It was open in the front and drapey enough that it covered everything, but a gust of wind was a guaranteed ticket to titty town; inadvertently exposing my breasts in public is a thing I try to avoid....
Labrabbit Optics 1104 N. Ashland Runner-Up MyEyeDr.
Northwestern Medical Group1913 W. North 312-926-3627 nmpg.com Runner-Up Maria Reyes, Women’s Health Resources
Reggies Chicago 2105 S. State 312-949-0120 www.reggieslive.com @reggieslive
Multiple locations veggiediner.com Runner-Up Handlebar
The Purge: Anarchy In this week’s issue Ben Sachs reviews The Purge: Anarchy, James DeMonaco’s sequel to his 2013 shocker The Purge. Set in a futuristic United States, it takes place on a national holiday in which scores of people can be shot to death and no one is punished. Or as we call it here in Chicago, “Saturday.”
Anyone who caught Chance the Rapper‘s weekend-closing headlining set at this summer’s Pitchfork Music Festival also witnessed its heavy dose of contemporary gospel music, specifically due to the appearance of Kirk Franklin and a choir of backup singers. The biblical push shows no sign of slowing down, as evidenced by Chance’s appearance on BJ the Chicago Kid’s recent single, “Church.” The track dropped on Fake Shore Drive on Saturday and it’s the latest preview of BJ’s forthcoming album, In My Mind....
It takes a certain brazenness to attempt maximalist rap as an underdog, and Chicago rapper-producer Ibn Inglor has it in spades. Last year’s self-released Honegloria is painted from the same palette Kanye’s been using for his recent work: spartan synths play yawning melodies as big as canyons, horn samples sound like they’re calling gladiators to battle, and booming percussion makes as much of an indent when the drums go quiet as when they’re at full tilt....
Laura Collins, Donald Trump Mocking a Disabled Reporter, 2017 “My intent with the triptych—which is based on fractured stills from video footage of the president-elect imitating Serge Kovaleski, a New York Times reporter who has arthrogryposis—is to force the viewing public to look again at a moment in our recent history that is incredibly shameful. When faced with discomfort, we naturally squirm and cope with these feelings by avoiding, ignoring, or denying them....
Meghan Daum is the author of one new(ish) essay collection, The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion, and the editor of another, Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids, which she’ll be discussing with the writer Jac Jemc at the Chicago Humanities Festival on November 7. Recently she took some time to chat on the phone about Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed from New York, where she’s a professor in the MFA creative writing program at Columbia University’s School of the Arts....
As a performer, Dael Orlandersmith, who wrote and starred in the Obie-winning 1995 one-person show Beauty’s Daughter, is pure empathic gravitas. Her chopping-block physique, orotund voice, and stately bearing give her a monumental presence, while her uncanny ability to conjure exquisitely damaged and pathetic characters lends a disarming warmth to everything she does. And she captivates through the most modest of means; a slight shift of her head, lowering of her voice, or adjustment of her posture is all she needs to transform convincingly from one persona to another....
3800 N. Pulaski 773-545-7427 smoquebbq.com Runner-Up Smoke Daddy
thefatbabies.com Runners-Up Mike Reed Trio Sabertooth Organ Quartet
Shabazz Palaces World Music Festival starts today. Riot Fest kicks off tomorrow. The Reader put together comprehensive guides for both eye-grabbing musical bashes, so read our previews for World Music Festival and Riot Fest if you plan on attending either (or both). Besides those two big events are a mess of other concerts worthy of your time. “Psychedelic garage rock is reaching a saturation point, and not just because Ty Segall releases four records a year and Thee Oh Sees go through so many highly publicized breakups and reunions that it’s no use counting them,” writes Luca Cimarusti....
After a contentious neighborhood meeting that turned into a battle with rival social media accounts and a nasty leaflet campaign, it’s now official: Haymarket Books will be moving into Buena Park after all. The official vote was 50 for issuing Haymarket the permit, 30 against, but unofficially—meaning people who didn’t live within 250 feet—the vote was 322-94. “A very very special thanks to all the folks at Haymarket for their commitment to our neighborhood despite the many trials and tribulations we put them through,” Renner Barsella, the group’s administrator, wrote on its Facebook page....
For a good chunk of its 90-minute length, David Cale’s autobiographical monologue looks exactly like your typical boom-generation gay coming-of-age story. Young David is the sensitive product of a dysfunctional marriage. His mom, Barbara, is a creative soul living the “wrong life.” Dad Ron drinks away his waking hours, trying to self-medicate an adulthood spent under the thumb of his own thuggish, successful father. Along with little brother Simon, they live 30 miles and a world away from London, in the declining industrial city of Luton, known condescendingly as “the only northern town in the south” of England....
