A&E Jaclyn pretends she’s not grossed out by her new husband, Ryan. There’s a groovy old Billy Joel song called “The Stranger,” and it’s all about how we reveal to other people, even our lovers, only what we want to be seen. We’re all hideous, selfish monsters hiding behind masks of decorum, empathy, intelligence, and charisma, not to mention superficial things like makeup, hairdos, and chemically whitened teeth. Is Billy Joel a cynic?...

Commonwealth Tavern Leader Bar

Chicago Architecture Biennial chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org, @chicagobiennial Who would have the nerve to knock down a unique landmark building over the horrified protests of an international roster of top architects one year, then launch a global architectural forum courting the respect and participation of the same architects the very next year? Why, Chicago would! Ergo, the first-ever Chicago Architecture Biennial, anchored by events at the Chicago Cultural Center and scheduled for a three-month run starting October 3....

Progress is not a straight line . . . I think things are gonna work out.” That’s how Barack Obama reassured Anthony Bourdain over beers and bun cha at a tiny, crowded Hanoi restaurant in the spring of 2016, shortly before everything got fucked. Tina Nguyen is the North Shore’s bun cha ambassador. To be sure, you could already find versions of the dish at, say, Uptown’s Pho 777 (where flyers posted to the mirrored wall advertise “Bun Cha Obama”) or the late Pho Lily, where Nguyen found work after emigrating from Vietnam in 2011....

ARTIST: Angel Onofre SHOW: Sons of Ra, Numerical Control Society, and Without Light at the Owl on Thu 11/21 MORE INFO: Angel Onofre

UPDATE Thursday, March 12, 9:45 PM: this event has been canceled. Refunds available at point of purchase. In the Chicago premiere of this Henrik Ibsen adaptation, Raven Theatre and director Lauren Shouse create masterful suspense—something that could be difficult to pull off with a setting of 1870s Norway. The strength of Anne-Charlotte Hanes Harvey’s translation, adapted by herself and Kirsten Brandt, is its use of contemporary language and a tighter, two-act structure to drive this proto-feminist tale of a disintegrating marriage and a young woman discovering herself....

Chicago actor Kareem Bandealy is a busy man, with a bio packed with A-list acting gigs at, among other places, the Goodman, Court Theatre, Writers Theatre, and, of course, Lookingglass, where he’s an ensemble member. Still, somehow, he found time to write a play. And get it produced, at Lookingglass. And now it’s being reviewed, by me. Of course, this has been done before—and better (see Waiting for Godot). Bandealy gives us a lighter version of theater of the absurd: milder, sweeter, and stripped of its anger and conviction and passion....

Michael Gebert Any argument about who’s had the biggest influence on food in Chicago—Achatz or Trotter? Szathmary or Banchet?—can immediately be shut down once someone makes mention of Ray Kroc. The shake-machine salesman built McDonald’s into the epitome of a worldwide fast-food empire. If you think that’s a bad thing, it probably is in some ways. But I was in Budapest a year after Communism fell. There were two McDonald’s there, and they were filled with locals....

Chile mentaiko spaghetti at Momotaro momotarochicago.com The Japanese obsession with itameshi, or Italian food, produced a superb fusion dish sometime in the 50s, according to Momotaro executive chef Mark Hellyar, who put it on his menu. In the dish, hot pasta meets a hot sauce of Plugrá butter and Kewpie mayo, light shoyu, chile oil, ginger, lemon juice, and the spicy cured pollack roe mentaiko, imported from Kyushu. Served over an organic Jidori egg yolk and sprinkled with powdered nori, it’s a fishy, spicy, buttery-rich collision of cuisines....

Mariano’s marianos.com Runner-Up: Green Grocer

Saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and drummer Tom Rainey have been married to each other since 2010 and playing together since 2007, working as a duo as well as within larger ensembles, where they’ve collaborated with avant-garde jazz musicians such as Tim Berne and Mary Halvorson. Though the duo initially focused on improvisational music, a 2016 tour inspired them to incorporate more composition into their work. This is evident on their third album, 2018’s Utter (Relative Pitch), which is largely improvised but adds three composed pieces: Laubrock wrote “Chant II,” and the two of them collaborated on the opening and closing tracks, “Flutter” and “Shutter....

When drill erupted out of Chicago three years ago behind the rise of Chief Keef, the infamous MC brought his close circle of friends with him into the limelight. Many inked deals with major labels, though Sadiki Thirston, aka SD, went indie—he’s released a string of Life of a Savage mixtapes and a studio album, November’s Truly Blessed, which he put out through LA’s IHipHop Distribution. SD’s name is less recognizable than, say, fellow drill rappers Lil Durk or Lil Reese, but SD is exalted among hip-hop heads who follow this scene closely....

Willy Wonka inspired generations of kids to dream of owning a chocolate factory when they grew up—but Sara Miller and Mary and Michael Ervin have achieved it in real life. Ethereal Confections isn’t a factory on the scale of Wonka’s, and there’s no chocolate river. But they do make their own chocolate from cocoa beans, which they turn into truffles, peanut butter cups, and bars in flavors like pistachio-cranberry or strawberry with rose petal and pink peppercorn....

Chicago Craft Beer Week is a bit of a misnomer. Its hundreds of events don’t fit into just seven days. There are beer dinners and specials, tap takeovers, and collaborative releases at bars and restaurants around Chicago (and extending into the suburbs, which boast plenty of breweries these days). Things kick off tomorrow with Beer Under Glass and conclude a week from Saturday with the Welles Park Craft Beer Fest....

Emporium 1366 N. Milwaukee 773-697-7922emporiumchicago.com

Alcala’s Jessica’s Western Wear

After a mixed reception for their 2008 instrumental album The Effects of 333, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club seemed to be on a stabler course with the addition of Leah Shapiro, who took over the drum throne from Nick Jago. Unfortunately, it’s been a truly rough decade for raucous San Francisco rock band. In 2010, bassist Robert Levon Been lost his father, Michael, who was also the band’s sound engineer, to a heart attack during a festival in Europe....

When it comes to infamous female serial killers, Aileen Wuornos has nothing on the 16th century’s Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian countess who allegedly drank—and even bathed in—the blood of virgins in order to stay youthful in those pre-Goop days. In Bloody Bathory, playwright Millie Rose (who also plays the countess) follows the lead of Sleep No More and many other immersive “choose your own adventure” shows by setting the action in several rooms of an Edgewater church....

Since the last embers of 2015 died away, I have spent the past few days peering into the future of the nation’s bookshelves. Alas, I cannot see very much beyond June, and the status of The Winds of Winter, the latest in George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” series (aka Game of Thrones) remains murky. But if you think you missed some of the finer plot points of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, boy do I have some good news for you: there are nearly 300 novelizations, encyclopedias, and visual dictionaries to help you out, not to mention an art-therapy coloring book (due 2/25, Egmont) and a new memoir by Carrie Fisher (The Princess Diarist, 4/26, Blue Rider)!...