OUT NOW Everywhere You Don’t Belong by Gabriel Bump (Algonquin Books) A novel following a young man growing up in South Shore and coming to terms with the idea of home Pew by Catherine Lacey (Macmillian) A small town takes in a mysterious, silent, androgynous person and tries to uncover their true identity. So Forth by Rosanna Warren (W. W. Norton & Company) A new collection from the renowned poet...
The bad news is that 4 Suyos, one of my favorite Peruvian restaurants—which I loved for its relaxed, friendly atmosphere and BYOB policy as much as its excellent food—is closed. The good news is that I only realized it was gone when I went to Tumi, a Peruvian restaurant that, it turns out, occupies the old 4 Suyos space. Aside from a fresh coat of paint on the walls, new curtains, and the addition of flashing lights that frame the front windows, the new place looks almost identical to its predecessor....
For the opening of its 27th season, Factory Theater presents Oh Sh#t! It’s Haunted!, a spooky Scooby-Doo-inspired, Polish-themed mystery written by Scott OKen and directed by Manny Tamayo. Henry Aldrichzewski (Jose Cervantes) and his cohort of idiot friends band together in order to assist Ma Aldrichzewski (Christy Arington) in finding somewhere to host the Polish American Festival, preferably somewhere with a staging area to cook pierogies and kołaczki. The old Lockwood place owned by creepy old geezer Peter Jasonczevik (Eric Frederickson) becomes the sought-after venue— except for the fact that it’s haunted by a band of ghost musicians....
Nick Offerman is quite the combo platter. Whether he’s acting in television or film, writing a New York Times best seller (he has four under his belt), or making a dining room table out of a nice slab of elm, he’s always on the go. These days, he’s wearing the hat of “comedian” for a 37-state tour of his latest one-man show, All Rise, which he describes as an evening of “deliberative talking and light dance with several songs and stories....
Michael Gebert Jamon de Iberico bellota Several of my friends had spoken highly on social media of their experiences at Bom Bolla, a new cava bar—that is, a wine bar focused on sparkling wine from Spain—from the owners of Pops for Champagne. As food gets more ornate in Chicago, there’s a counter movement of places that focus on simple but high-quality foods from other cultures; chefs in particular seem to like to eat at these sorts of places, maybe because there’s no other chef’s hand in between them and the ingredients....
The Comedy Bar Some of Chicago’s best comedy clubs aren’t actually comedy clubs. Many of the city’s most noteworthy stand-ups carry on in places without doormen, two-drink minimums, or even a stage. The Lincoln Lodge, the city’s premier stand-up revue for more than a decade, spent most of its existence in the back of its namesake, the late Lincoln Restaurant; Uncharted Books, a used bookstore in Logan Square, hosts Congrats on Your Success, the venerable monthly series produced by Rebecca O’Neal....
The Lawrence Arms Dos Santos Finalists: Dawn Xiana Moon, Beats y Bateria
Ravinia Festival Pritzker Pavilion Finalists: Millennium Park, Northerly Island
Split-face concrete block residential buildings are the parking meter lease deal of Chicago architecture: ugly, regrettable—and something we’re stuck with for decades to come. And to make matters worse, the blocks with the decorative faces are frequently only on the front-facing portion of a building. The sides of these buildings are often just unadorned, straight-up concrete block, visible from the street.
Friends, I’m writing to you from Beloit, Wisconsin, just a few miles north of the Illinois border, where I have been invited to college up some of the youths of America for a few weeks. I have a class, and the students are great. Brilliant! Hilarious! But I always forget how eager young folks are to establish their place in the world, to assess an idea in terms of how much it conforms to their still-forming visions of the world, so as to differentiate themselves—from their classmates, their families....
Energy has seemed to be in stasis, the last throes of winter killing or wiping clean what no longer needs to exist. For us Northern Hemispherians, the change began in early February, the midway point between solstice and equinox, a time long recognized as the start of the agricultural calendar supported by old Western traditions and the Lunar New Year. Filled with life and human stories of human use, “vacant” lots—called such due to what’s not there—have a lot there....
Celine Neon celineneon.com Runner-Up: Cornstar Farmer’s Market Pornstar Coinstar
ORA Dental Studio 1854 W. Division 773-227-6721 oradentalstudio.com Runner-Up: Always There Dental Care
Chicago International Film Festival Black Harvest Film Festival Finalists: Chicago Critics Film Festival, Juggernaut Film Festival
For its fourth year, the culture convention of style, arts, and music outlet Complex has branched out into a second home in Chicago. ComplexCon is coming thousands of miles from its home in Long Beach, California, bringing national attention with it—and the members of Chicago’s groundbreaking creative community have been feeling the weight of that attention differently. Some of them are reluctant to celebrate, not least because they’ve been doing for decades what ComplexCon is attempting for a weekend in July: as the convention’s website puts it, it aims to bring together “pop culture, music, art, food, sports, innovation, activism, and education....
In late June, Pride Films and Plays faced a wave of allegations on social media about the behavior of founder and executive director David Zak, leading to Zak’s resignation and the appointment of Donterrio Johnson as artistic director. In early November, Johnson resigned, charging that Zak was still in a hands-on role with the company (which, under Johnson, did rebrand itself as PrideArts). According to Pride’s board president Cheri Tatar, Johnson was informed before he took the role of artistic director that Zak would still be involved behind the scenes....
You don’t have to be a Star Wars fanatic to like Joe Zettelmaier’s 2006 heist comedy about a group of twentysomething fanboys (and one fangirl) who plan to steal a fortune in mint-condition Star Wars action figures. But it doesn’t hurt if you know a fanboy or two IRL, the better to appreciate how well Zettlemaier’s script captures the aggressive geekiness of these twenty- and early thirtysomethings who know everything there is to know about the Star Wars universe but can barely navigate this one....
