The passing of Maurice White, drummer for and architect behind Earth, Wind & Fire, has already been widely reported—and with good reason. White, who died in his sleep yesterday at age 74 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease, was a towering figure in pop music: EWF have sold more than 90 million albums during a career that’s lasted nearly 50 years, and White produced countless hits for others as well....
There are plenty of shows, films, and other events happening this weekend. Here’s what our critics say about what we recommend: Sat 4/7: “I’ve always found Jason Bateman’s comedies to be a pretty good bet; he’s never doubled me over, but the movies he’s produced (Identity Thief, Bad Words, The Family Fang) are abundantly clever, with dialogue that manages to be hilariously mean but essentially harmless. In the energetic farce [Game Night], he and Rachel McAdams (in a sparkling comic performance) are spouses who live for their social evenings playing board games and other contests with friends; one night the husband’s brother offers to host and hires one of those mystery-staging companies to come over, but real criminals arrive instead....
The makeup, the pyrotechnics, the guitars that shoot fireworks, the blood spitting, the levitating band members, the fire breathing, the glitz, the glamour, the rock ’n’ rolling every night and the partying every day . . . after 46 years, it’s all coming to an end, apparently, as Kiss—one of the most ridiculous rock spectacles ever to exist—embark on their farewell tour. This won’t be the first time Kiss have claimed to be hanging up their seven-inch platform-heel boots—they originally said their 2000 reunion tour would be their last....
Ute Brunzel, © MHK Thou-less by Doris Salcedo When in the presence of Doris Salcedo’s artwork, it should be understood that though the pieces were created and overseen by Salcedo, the work isn’t exclusively hers. The stainless-steel fused chairs of Thou-less or the encased shoes within the gallery walls of Atrabiliarios don’t really belong to her—they belong to the countless individuals she’s interviewed, as well as the thousands who have suffered from a war-torn country....
After years of controversy—including the recent trial and expulsion of some dissenting members—the Columbia College Chicago Faculty Union (CFAC) is about to get a referendum on its leadership. But this setup, the DOL concluded, is a violation of federal labor law: union members must elect officers into specific positions. And the vote needs to be taken by secret ballot. To ensure security, it needs to be a paper ballot submitted through the U....
This is part two of a two-part series. Read part one here. It’s impossible to faithfully reconstruct what happened during Hernandez’s eviction court proceedings, because there was no court reporter present to make transcripts. This is the norm in Cook County. The absence of systematic record keeping for eviction trials means that both plaintiffs and defendants lose any meaningful opportunity to appeal judges’ decisions. If judges behave inappropriately or misinterpret the law, there’s no way to hold them accountable....
Dinkel’s Bakery Lost Larson Finalists: Bittersweet Pastry Shop & Cafe, Defloured
Davanti Enoteca 1359 W. Taylor 312-226-5550 davantienoteca.com/chicago Runner-Up: Monteverde
By Elle Quintana, talent buyer at Reggies I hobble in and order a beer. “No problem at all.” I wake up the next day and now even I agree: I need to see a doctor. My lower leg looks like a huge, beige tube, and my toes look like giant raisins dangling from my foot. When I started getting hospital bills, I went to the police station across from Underbar and Blue Light and asked if I could see the tapes from that night to try and find the cab and maybe have the driver’s insurance pay for my hospital bill....
Beurrage beurrage.com When you think of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, most likely you think of two pieces of white bread hastily slathered with Skippy and Smuckers and slapped together, shoved into a brown paper bag, and smushed in the bottom of a backpack until lunchtime, at which point it’s gobbled down in a crowded cafeteria table or at an office desk. There’s something to be said for simple food as fuel, but what if things were different?...
Friends of the Parks Cassandra Francis is going far, far away. Friends of the Parks president Cassandra Francis inspired some creative speculation last week, when she abruptly left her job. So the speculation swirled. All Francis originally said about her departure was that it was a good time to be “moving on.” But Wednesday, the Washington Post Style blog reported a much more mundane reason for Francis’s exit. She’s joining her husband, Northwestern University law professor Clinton Francis, whose appointment as founding dean of a new NU-mentored law school in Qatar was announced in February....
Earlier this year, I was waiting for a bus in front of a gas station in Albany Park when I noticed an elderly woman milling around in the decorative ground cover that passes for green space in the parking lot. She was tossing fistfuls of torn bread onto what I then noticed was a cratered moonscape of holes in the ground. I can’t imagine the old woman’s motivations, but I was certainly curious....
“This board is illegitimate!” The delay, said BYP100 organizer Damon Williams, “is an assertion of power to prove to the community that . . . our demands don’t matter. It seems to invalidate our presence.” The sentiment was echoed by activists who took the microphone. Among their demands: an elected police board, the redirection of funds from the police department to schools and clinics, and Servin’s dismissal. Outside police headquarters, the activists joined hands in solidarity....
Upon reflection, I think the most impressive thing about last week’s dog-and-pony unveiling of the O’Hare-to-Loop express service is that Mayor Rahm and Elon Musk got through their press conference with straight faces. Those hundreds of millions of public dollars may not count to Mayor Rahm or Musk, his new best pal, but they sure would have come in handy to the public school kids who’ve gone without art, music, theater, special education, and so forth down through the years....
Maria Hadden (49th Ward) Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th Ward) Finalists: Scott Waguespack (32nd Ward), Matt Martin (47th Ward)
Floriole 1220 W. Webster 773-883-1313floriole.com
Sultan’s Market Runner-Up: Taste of Lebanon
