Two months after two senior staff members of the Better Government Association resigned under duress, all 11 members of the staff they left behind signed a petition to join the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) to unionize. Wage scales are an inevitable subject of negotiation when management sits down with labor, but job insecurity often plays a bigger role when employees decide to unionize in the first place....

Television critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz started working together at the Star-Ledger in New Jersey (“the paper at the end of Tony Soprano’s driveway in The Sopranos,” says Seitz) in 1996, but their bond actually goes back further than that: both cite the 80s police drama Hill Street Blues as a gateway into the world of TV. And it’s a show that’s stuck with them: in their recent collaboration, TV (The Book), it scores 104 out of 120 points on the scale the pair devised to rank the greatest American television shows of all time....

In Theatre Y’s most recent production of Juliet—the company’s third time putting up Hungarian-Romanian playwright András Visky’s familial autobiographical work in the past ten years—the theater itself is a womb. In 1959, András Visky was barely two years old when he, along with his six siblings and his mother, Júlia (i.e. Juliet) were arrested and deported to the Romanian wilderness as part of the ruling Communist party’s infamous Bărăgan deportations. For six years, Júlia and her children faced constant threat of torture and execution before finally being released in 1964....

Dispensary 33 Zen Leaf Finalists: Happy Daze, St. Lucia’s

For nearly 20 years multi-instrumentalist Scott Hirsch has quietly sculpted rich landscapes of expansive Americana in San Francisco’s the Court and Spark. More recently, he’s collaborated with that band’s old front man, MC Taylor, on Taylor’s solo project, Hiss Golden Messenger. But a couple of years ago Hirsch finally stepped out on his own, and in 2016 he produced an album of kaleidoscopic range and beauty that encompasses his varied interests....

A Reader staffer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn. Thunder Rock, “Don’t Go Away” I found this charmingly inept 1984 pop-metal single by the amazingly obscure Thunder Rock while browsing the world’s greatest digital repository of private-press records, eBay. “Don’t Go Away” is its B side, a cockeyed ballad that sounds ready to fall off the wax at any moment, then miraculously arrives at its triumphant finale nearly intact....

Brian Jackson/Sun-Times Media What’s the fun of cleaning up the last guy’s messes if you can’t make some of your own? On Wednesday the City Council overwhelming voted to borrow $1.1 billion to pay the debt on some of Mayor Daley’s really bad deals, including his decision to buy Michael Reese Hospital. That’s my take on Mayor E.’s plan to revive Mayor Daley’s dream of building an express train to O’Hare airport, even though there’s no tracks on which it can run and nobody around town really wants or needs it ’cause we already have a train that runs from the Loop to O’Hare....

Aimee Levitt Roast beef sandwich and chips Like many people who work in offices and who would rather sleep as late as possible instead of getting up early to prepare and pack elaborate lunches, I eat a lot of sandwiches. I wouldn’t say I’m a connoisseur exactly, but I have some firm opinions about what makes a good sandwich. Pleasing though the sandwiches are, the real standout at Andorka’s is a side of their potato chips....

If you’ve ever heard of Chicago composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Ayanna Woods, it might have been at Constellation, where groups such as Fifth House Ensemble and ZRL have performed her works. Or maybe her music has streamed through your headphones while you were listening to Eve Ewing’s new podcast Bughouse Square. Woods’s songs, including “Has to Be,” have also been featured in the web series Brown Girls, and in 2017 she appeared alongside Ewing and poet Nate Marshall in the Manual Cinema live-action film performance No Blue Memories—The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks....

The Music Box Theatre was built in 1929 and it feels the way many older, well-preserved buildings feel: beautiful, a little mysterious, and deeply, deeply haunted. It’s the exact sort of place one would expect to see a ghost. Back then, the theater still showed movies on 35 mm film. This meant that Jacobs was responsible for changing over one reel of film to the next in both booths. The process is fairly straightforward: “You watch the little window for that cigarette burn,” she explains, “and then you have to [switch] the audio and the picture at the same time....

Bay Area clarinetist Ben Goldberg always seems to be widening his creative portfolio, applying his restrained virtuosity to an ever-increasing number of pursuits and styles. I first took note of his work in the early 90s, when his New Klezmer Trio melded sometimes raucous, sometimes sorrowful Jewish music with the language of free jazz. Since then he’s turned up in tons of disparate contexts, some emphasizing his melodic gifts, others stressing his skills as a superb group improviser....

Cook County Board president Toni Preckwinkle Cook County state’s attorney Kim Foxx Finalists: Cook County assessor Fritz Kaegi, Cook County Board commissioner Bridget Gainer

Big Chicks The Closet Finalists: Farraguts, Tantrum

Humboldt Park Welles Park Finalists: Winnemac Park, Horner Park

Reckless Records various locations reckless.com Runner-Up: Laurie’s Planet of Sound

UPDATE: the Thursday March 12 show has been canceled and rescheduled for Tuesday, 10/20/20 at 7 PM. It will remain at the Chicago Theatre. Tickets for March 12 will be honored for the new date. Refund information is available at point of purchase. Every member of the Grateful Dead played a vital role in the band: Jerry Garcia was the spaced-out leader, Mickey Hart was the shamanic spiritual guide, and Phil Lesh was the giant brain....

Ten years ago, Jim Becker sought out yoga and meditation teacher Lama Lobsang Palden, hoping to find physical and spiritual healing. But at the end of their first encounter, Palden told the local multi-instrumentalist that they should make an album together. Three years later, they began the protracted process that resulted in the new Drag City release Compassion. Becker, who’s played with Califone, Iron & Wine, and Lanzón, recorded Palden’s chants and percussion while accompanying him on acoustic stringed instruments....

Rent-controlled apartments offer a stability rarely seen in metropolitan areas. They sure don’t exist in Chicago. But what happens when an apartment is the only stability one has? When we meet Pops, we learn the answer is not much, outside of a safe-ish place to sleep and drink. The cast is strong, but the women in particular are limited by the script. Almanya Narula, who plays Junior’s girlfriend Lulu, leans too hard into ditzy and scatterbrained, bumbling around the apartment in revealing clothes and forgotten responsibilities....