In his first year as a resident at the Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago-based artist Tongji Philip Qian is rethinking the order of the studio. The artist has just launched his State VIII Project (�...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/tongji-philip-qian-studio-state-viii-project/
This story was published by the Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in America. Sign up for its newsletters here. Robbie Johnson is raising her family’s fourth generation of chi...
https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/chicago-gun-violence-neighborhoods/
On picture day in third grade, Rickie Pérez wore his dad’s chef’s coat and toque and posed with his favorite book from the Brentano Math and Science Academy library: Lynne Marie Waldee’s C...
Disarray at the CTA The #FireDorval caucus grows larger. Governor J.B. Pritzker is the latest to call for the ouster of CTA president Dorval Carter. Although he declined to use terms like “fire...
https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/make-it-make-sense/dorval-carter-bears-stadium/
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with Selva Aparicio about the exhibition “In Memory Of,” on view at the DePaul Art Museum. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readabil...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/selva-aparicio-on-in-memory-of/
To a large extent, classical music and popular music are separate traditions with distinct audiences. No one told folk guitarist Marisa Anderson and indie-rock drummer Jim White, though. Their se...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/jim-white-marisa-anderson-constellation/
Folly Group’s “Paying the Price” is one of the best electronica-infused postpunk songs about shame, and it’s only a B side. The band’s singles—of which they’ve dropped plenty since ...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/folly-group-hideout/
Pianist Erwin Helfer is a local hero who has made a global impact. The 88-year-old musician is resolute in his devotion to early blues, jazz, and ragtime piano, and he’s taught his emotional, s...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/erwin-helfer-old-town-school/
Even if Japanese songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer Eiko Ishibashi collaborated with Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi only once, I’d be grateful. When I saw Hamaguchi’s celeb...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/eiko-ishibashi-score-gift-logan-center/
When the Reader checked in with local noisemaking polymath Seb Alvarez in 2022, he’d turned his creative focus away from his band Meth. and toward the beats-blasted experimental side project Vi...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/meth-schubas/
“The Lute is Eternal” proclaims the text that concludes the ten-minute video to Jozef van Wissem’s recent single, “The Call of the Deathbird.” The Dutch composer’s gruff vocals appear...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/jozef-van-wissem-empty-bottle/
Giggs’s self-released debut full-length, Walk in da Park, is a landmark album in UK hip-hop history, and almost 16 years after its release, the London rapper is making his first North American ...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/giggs-subterranean/
Countless Survivor contestants have turned to the camera during their confessionals to express the difficult and draining nature of the game—the physical and mental exhaustion, the lack of food...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/ben-katzman-empty-bottle/
I saw my first Barrie Cole play the night before the world turned upside down. On September 10, 2001, I trotted over to Curious Theatre Branchʼs home in the now defunct Lunar Cabaret space on ...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/ghost-light/barrie-cole-hamburgers-and-disappointment/
There’s porn, and then there’s porn. You see, there’s the same old run-of-the-mill 2D porn, and then there’s 3D, virtual reality porn. If you want to take your porn game to the next level...
https://chicagoreader.com/reader-partners/best-vr-porn-sites/
A sugar daddy is always looking for his sugar baby, and vice versa. These are the top sites where sugar daddies and babies connect for real sugar relationships. The post 9 Best Sugar Momma Webs...
https://chicagoreader.com/reader-partners/sugar-momma-sites/
Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver picks up right where the first film left off, continuing writer-director-cinematographer Zack Snyder’s Seven Samurai in space” homage/reimagining/pastic...
https://chicagoreader.com/film/review-rebel-moon-part-two-the-scargiver/
Omen opens on the set of a windswept desert. A horseback rider appears as the score wanes and whistles. This is maybe the only moment of calm in the film, with the remainder involving stunning vi...
Simon Godwin’s production of Macbeth was filmed live at Dock X in London, but even though it was intended for cinema release, a lot of the production choices don’t work especially well on the...
In Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, the titular vampire’s victims were initially and primarily women. The bites and the blood were metaphors for sexual awakening, and the femmes who fell to ...
In the opening scene of Meredith Willson’s The Music Man at Marriott Theatre, a train car full of traveling salesmen showcase their talent and precision as they fast-talk and sing their way thr...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/theater/theater-review/music-man-marriott-theatre/
There have been several intriguing plays about siblings dealing with loss onstage this year, including Leah Nanako Winkler’s The Brightest Thing in the World at About Face Theatre and the curre...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/theater/theater-review/jump-shattered-globe-theatre/
A one-person take on Hamlet starring a famous comedian sounds like a recipe for self-indulgence. (Or the opening premise for a deliberately off-kilter affair, as in the ridiculous and sublime Gar...
Some shows age well, some don’t. You’d think a silly 74-year-old musical comedy like Guys and Dolls, with its cartoonish characters and sitcom plotlines (like, gambler makes a bet he can’t ...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/theater/theater-review/guys-and-dolls-drury-lane-theatre/
Brooklyn Laundry is a deceptive show: It begins with a meet-cute and briefly lulls you into the sense that it will unspool as something of a rom-com. But playwright John Patrick Shanley isn’t o...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/theater/theater-review/brooklyn-laundry-northlight-theatre/
It’s tempting to say that Neil Simon’s 1963 romantic comedy Barefoot in the Park hasn’t aged well. But even when it premiered on Broadway with Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley as newlywe...
Under the best of circumstances, it would be hard to make this 1983 musical soar. The story by playwright Sybille Pearson about three prosperous white, middle-class couples coping with pregnancy ...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/theater/theater-review/baby-citadel-theatre/
Last summer, Galen Odell-Smedley opened a solo show, “Peach Peach,” at Humboldt Park’s Ignition Project Space. The exhibition hinted at a meticulously arranged artist’s woodshop: What we ...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/sensing-wood-sculpting-ecology-galen-odell-smedley/
Come mingle and listen to an insider’s conversation on fashion and journalism. We have an esteemed group of panelists, from SAIC, the Chicago Fashion Coalition, and our very own editor-in-chief...
https://chicagoreader.com/reader/reader-events/fashion-forward-night/
For years before Chicago singer-guitarist Miranda Winters cofounded beloved noise-rock group Melkbelly in 2013, she was already making music as a solo artist. In 2018 she released a cassette call...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/gossip-wolf/miranda-winters-mandy-lawn-girl-show-pals/
Younger folks don’t often believe me, but in the 1990s, the term “psychedelia” was usually a liability for an artist. It meant stuff like the Grateful Dead, who were extremely unhip at the ...
It has been more than ten years since the last of the Cabrini-Green high-rises—housing complexes that were built in 1942 to be affordable and safe housing for low-income residents—were demoli...
https://chicagoreader.com/film/we-grown-now-minhal-baig-interview/
Traces, residues, and obfuscation are the small but major themes of the playful Jonas Müller-Ahlheim exhibition, “peekaboo,” on view at Ukrainian Village’s Patient Info gallery. At first g...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/jonas-muller-ahlheim-art-games/
Bianca Xunise’s graphic novel debut Punk Rock Karaoke is a love letter to the south side and punks of color everywhere. In 248 rapid-paced pages, Xunise tells a coming-of-age story centered on ...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/bianca-xunise-punk-rock-karaoke/
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was the preeminent society portraitist of his day. A master at capturing the sheen and folds of the costumes he dressed his wealthy sitters in, the question of w...
https://chicagoreader.com/film/review-john-singer-sargent-fashion-and-swagger/
Hanky Panky is a delightfully unserious horror movie crammed with comedy. From the minds of Nick Roth and Lindsey Haun, the film follows a man and a talking napkin who are on a mission to save th...
The Sympathizer begins with a commanding sequence of instructions issued to a prisoner by a military official: “Restart. Recollect. Reeducate. Revolution. And Rewrite.” These words are meant ...
https://chicagoreader.com/film/review-the-sympathizer-miniseries/
By Charlotte Abotsi The post Self Portrait as Blue Monday by Annie Lee appeared first on Chicago Reader .
https://chicagoreader.com/reader-partners/poetry-foundation/self-portrait-blue-monday-annie-lee/
Behind a time stamp with the date “20 02 2001,” a line of blurred lights shudders. Overlaid, as if from a composite of two photos, a woman’s face appears. So does a camera. Voices are match...
https://chicagoreader.com/film/chicago-palestine-film-festival-2024/
Chicago Children’s Theatre’s (CCT) first production, back in 2006, was the Tony Award-nominated A Year With Frog and Toad, created by brothers Robert (music) and Willie Reale (book and lyrics...
One of Chicagoland’s best-kept circus secrets is the Triton Troupers Circus, a motley cast of 80-plus circus performers who put on a traditional show every spring in Triton College‘s gymnasiu...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/theater/theater-review/triton-troupers-circus/
Groups demand EPA intervention over contaminated water in prisons Formerly incarcerated people, folks with loved ones in prison, advocates, and attorneys gathered in the Loop on Monday to deliver...
https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/make-it-make-sense/prison-water-police-misconduct/
“Unstuck” is an evening of performance art and installation, a result of the dynamic collaboration between dancer-choreographer Michelle Kranicke (Zephyr Dances) and internationally touring p...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/unstuck-is-a-genre-shattering-evening-of-live-work/
For nearly two decades, the Illinois Lottery has been a pioneer in creating specialty lottery tickets dedicated to raising awareness and funding for specific causes that impact our local communit...
Jon-Carlo Manzo grew up in Shorewood, an exurb just west of Joliet, but his tastes are thoroughly informed by Chicago. Since graduating from New York University in 2021, he’s entrenched himself...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/chicagoans-of-note/jon-carlo-manzo-pitch-perfect-angel-tapes/
Dom Vallone got his first job making pizza at a Little Caesars in Wood Dale, Illinois. He didn’t last long. “I absolutely tossed dough against management’s wishes and dropped them on the fl...
https://chicagoreader.com/food-drink/monday-night-foodball/pizza-dom-dough-patio/
Who was Mina Loy? You might know her as a poet and essayist whose work, although difficult and seemingly without parentage, was admired by contemporaries such as Ezra Pound, William Carlos Willia...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/mina-loy-arts-club-strangeness-is-inevitable/
Content note: This story includes mentions of sexual assault and sexual harm. Many subjects in this story use pseudonyms to protect their privacy. The first appearance of each is denoted by an as...
https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/audiotree-michael-johnston/
“I suppose it is easy to dismiss a young woman for forming and shaping her identity under the influence of books, of reading—and yet. That was what I had and it was everything.” Suzanne Sca...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/suzanne-scanlon-committed-memoir/
This Record Store Day, which arrives on Saturday, April 20, Republic Records is doing its best to make sure you can buy a newly pressed record by Vermont singer-songwriter Noah Kahan. Republic (p...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/record-store-day-2024-map-listings/
“From the river to sea, Palestine will be free!” “The people united will never be defeated!” “Fight back!” Boisterous chants fill the basement of Teamster City on April 13, where hund...
https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/dnc-protest-conference/
The barbershop has long been a cornerstone institution for Black and Brown communities. It serves folks looking for fresh cuts, of course, but it’s ultimately a place where people gather and ex...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/city-of-win-music-chicago/ano-bank-rapper-barber-blue-smoke/
My first visit to Trap Door Theatre did not disappoint, from the hidden alley entrance to the immediate sense of time travel and disorientation upon entry. For the last show of its 30th anniversa...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/theater/theater-review/nana-trap-door-theatre/
What is better than a time travel play? Not much. A rare species in itself, it can only be improved upon by something equally awesome—like centering women, impeccable stage combat, and a rock-s...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/theater/theater-review/s-paradox-babes-with-blades/
Hershey Felder first played Frédéric Chopin at the now-closed Royal George Theatre in 2005—one of several solo shows about great composers that Felder has created over the years (he’s also ...
It’s tempting to start a review of Beyond the Garden Gate with a comment like, “The fairy tales I grew up with were never like this.” But let’s face it: The fairy tales we grew up with at...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/theater/theater-review/beyond-the-garden-gate-impostors/
Forgetting a hookup’s name? Bad. Forgetting your spouse’s name? So bad it requires Old Testament intervention. Hetchman (Scott Danielson) is on a mission to find his lost partner (Daria H...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/theater/theater-review/hatmakers-wife-theatre-evolve/
Written and directed by Grant Batdorff, this satire of spy thrillers for Two Chairs Theatre at the Annoyance begins with a bang: a wry, spot-on parody of those bombastic title sequences popular i...
The Reader is available free of charge at more than 1,100 Chicago area locations. Issues are dated Thursday, and distributed Wednesday morning through Thursday night of the issue date. Some locat...
Chicago Reader Volume 53, No. 14. April 18, 2024 The post Chicago Reader Volume 53, No. 14 appeared first on Chicago Reader .
A cross between an art market, block party, and political rally, Artists Against Apartheid brings together Palestinian and Arab artists from around Chicago to recharge, build community, and raise...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/artists-against-apartheid-palestinian-resistance/
In an age in which distinctions between broadcast and streaming or video and digital are increasingly meaningless, it can be easy to forget just how revolutionary the technology of video was when...
https://chicagoreader.com/film/media-burn-guerrilla-television-symposium/
Motel Breakfast front man Jimmy Drenovsky founded the indie-rock five-piece in 2017, while at Marquette University in Milwaukee. He’d met most of his bandmates—guitarist Mick O’Donnell, key...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/gossip-wolf/motel-breakfast-having-fun-dream-blunt-rotation/
The 1976 classic The Omen is a terrified reactionary fever dream in which the rebellious, untrustworthy youth bring about the apocalypse through an assault on the hierarchical verities of church ...
Doors open to toy cars, an old arcade machine, racks of vintage 70s sweaters, and the crooning voice of Zapp founder Roger Troutman. In the corner of the small vintage shop sits Alexandria Jones�...
Growing up mixed Indigenous (Cherokee on my dad’s side), I always had an understanding of U.S. history that my peers didn’t. While my family celebrated Thanksgiving every year, my dad made a ...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/theater/larissa-fasthorse-thanksgiving-play/
Looking for casual sex? A one night stand? Here are over 20 legit hookup sites that actually get you laid and you can try for free! The post Best Hookup Sites and Apps for Adult Dating in 2024 ...
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Talk dirty by joining one of these free adult chat rooms. Thousands of people chat regularly on these sex chat sites. Join the conversation! The post Top Adult Chat Rooms for Sex Chat in 2024 ...
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Singer, composer, and producer Roberto Carlos Lange, better known as Helado Negro, creates soundscapes that exist in a beautifully liminal space. His luminous avant-pop creations, which he sings ...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/helado-negro-thalia-hall/
No artist in recent memory has been able to cross the generational divide quite like 24-year-old jazz-pop phenom Laufey. Since she released her full-length debut, 2022’s Everything I Know About...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/laufey-chicago-theatre/
North Dakota death-metal unit Gorgatron have been building up steam since they released their debut album, Torturetorium, in 2010, but it wasn’t until they toured in support of 2020’s Pathoge...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/gorgatron-reggies-music-joint/
Laraaji is ambient music’s prince of laughter. Since 1980, when he debuted with a sparkling collection of acoustic string compositions that became the third installment in Brian Eno’s famous ...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/laaraji-sam-prekop/
Twenty-three years have passed since Mike Kinsella issued his self-titled debut as Owen, a largely acoustic solo endeavor that made the twentysomething musician seem older than his years. Even in...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/owen-empty-bottle/
Mike is a slick talker who’s become an even slicker positive force on today’s hip-hop. The rapper occupies a corner with left-of-center MCs such as Earl Sweatshirt and Wiki, yet he’s snuggl...
Read in English. A pesar de una caída drástica en el número total de opioides recetados en Illinois, el número de sobredosis accidentales—tanto fatales como no fatales—ha aumentado contin...
If you stand in front of the flatiron-style building at 1226-1234 W. Loyola—home to 30 apartments and a trio of businesses on the ground floor—you’re surrounded by vacant lots. Across the s...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/demolition-1234-w-loyola-university-roman-susan/
“Felicific” refers to an action that will bring happiness or pleasure. Appropriately titled, this exhibition explores how Black environments elicit delightfulness through themes of nostalgia ...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/felicific-makes-the-old-new-again/
In the last decade of the 19th century, Chicago was growing much faster than its infrastructure could handle. Most streets were unpaved and became a muddy morass when it rained. The majority of v...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/anne-morrissy-street-fight-taxi-wars/
Why get off watching a video when you can watch a cam girl live? Here are the best sex cam sites with free and paid options. The post The 13+ Best Adult Cam Sites of 2024 appeared first on Chi...
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Looking to expand your wardrobe but mindful about the impact that consumerism has on the environment (and your wallet)? Chicago Fair Trade (CFT) is hosting an event that should be of interest: Co...
https://chicagoreader.com/city-life/shop-local/clothing-swap-chicago-fair-trade-fashion/
Qwanqwa are an Addis Ababa–based ensemble founded by American five-string violinist and Debo Band veteran Kaethe Hostetter in 2012. The group’s shifting intergenerational lineup has included ...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/qwanqwa-old-town-school-of-folk/
Every emerging scene has its share of young artists who take inspiration from one or two obscure, forgotten bands, often showing the rest of us what was so special about that relic we discarded, ...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/heccra-subterranean/
For decades, Nora O’Connor has played a vital support role in the alt-country scene, not just in Chicago but far afield. Her sunshine-and-honey–tinged vocals recall the counterculture heyday ...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/nora-oconnor-fitzgeralds/
On Minor Moon’s new The Light Up Waltz (Ruination Record Co.), front man Sam Cantor sings about crossing an unstable bridge over an unearthly abyss (“Blue Timing”) and navigating what feels...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/minor-moon-lincoln-hall/
Chicago indie-rock band Bnny, led by charismatic singer Jessica Viscius, have returned this month with their new second album, One Million Love Songs (Fire Talk). On the band’s 2021 debut full-...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/bnny-empty-bottle/
Myra Melford’s Fire and Water Quintet was born out of a one-off concert during her weeklong residency at New York venue the Stone in June 2019. Its all-woman all-star lineup consciously celebra...
https://chicagoreader.com/music/concert-preview/fire-and-water-logan-center/
Every once in a while, instead of using the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on an unjustly underrecognized artist I already know about, I use it to put out a call for information...
Standing out at Thursday evening’s opening night party for the 11th edition of EXPO Chicago was David Jude Greene, a local performance artist and professor in Columbia College Chicago’s cinem...
https://chicagoreader.com/city-life/the-best-street-style-at-expo-chicago/
COPA releases bodycam footage of police killing Dexter Reed The public got some answers this week about the police killing of Dexter Reed. But many questions remain. We know police shot at Reed...
https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/make-it-make-sense/dexter-reed-marz-brewing-marquette-trail/
Monday night, Mayor Brandon Johnson sat down with Clinée Hedspeth, the new commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), at University Club of Chicago for a love...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/ghost-light/ghost-light-chiarts/
ShotSpotter and its lobbyists worked with members of the City Council to advance a measure that would bypass Mayor Brandon Johnson and give alders final say on the use of the controversial gunsho...
https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/shotspotter-city-council-lobbyist/
Sometimes Tony Mata messes with the regulars and tells them the bar is going vegan. In the two and half years that Mata’s managed Frank and Mary’s Tavern, it hasn’t come close. The daytime ...
If given the choice to kill his darlings—beloved ideas that may otherwise seem out of place—or embolden them, French enfant terrible Bertrand Bonello (House of Tolerance, Saint Laurent, Noctu...
Though he may not be quite as famous as Jay Gatsby, few characters in modern American literature have been brought to the big (or small) screen as many times as Tom Ripley. The smooth-talking con...
https://chicagoreader.com/film/review-ripley-limited-series/
With Civil War, writer-director Alex Garland brilliantly imagines an escalation of existing contradictions. Humans flit between displays of tender compassion—Wagner Moura’s Joel comforting yo...
If you’re looking for a film that makes you feel fuzzy inside, this is it. Hard Miles features Oppenheimer actor Matthew Modine, who plays Greg Townsend, an inspirational coach working at a cor...
The Old Oak is a familiar story about immigration. Hard hearts soften and friendships are formed, as outsiders and insiders recognize each other’s innate humanity. But director Ken Loach avoids...
The philosophy of the Black radical tradition centers powerfully creative strategies for resistance and change through a politics of care, passion, and a desire to sustain what strengthens and em...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/cooperation-racine-a-black-feminist-ethos-englewood/
Just like families, the places we call home can be chosen. Athletes feel at home on the field and plenty of entertainers of all types declare they feel most comfortable onstage, which allows th...
https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/theater/theater-review/choir-of-man-apollo-theater-chicago/
Tom Stoppard’s debut 1966 play could be called Waiting for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: it matches Samuel Beckett’s meditation on the meaninglessness of existence with Shakespeare’s portra...