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Happy New Year, Chicago! Not news, though, really: Ben Joravsky will always be back. Especially during the election! I’ll fight anybody that doesn’t think Ben’s voice is sorely needed in this city at this time.

ARTIST: Maxwell Paternoster SHOW: Screaming Females, Bad Cop/Bad Cop, and Dark Thoughts at the Beat Kitchen on Thu 7/25 MORE INFO: cfh.bigcartel.com

You’d think by now we’d need no more convincing: bankers are crooks, the financial system is a top-heavy house of cards, and Brooks Brothers is for assholes. Enter Broken Nose Theatre’s Labyrinth. A riveting drama—and compelling primer on how U.S. loans fucked over Latin American countries back in the 70s and 80s—the story dissects economic corruption at a subjective level. As director Spenser Davis points out in his program notes, Labyrinth is about “the people getting the deals done....

Courtesy the author Michael Czyzniewjewski and some friends There’s something comforting about a book that concentrates exclusively on doomed relationships. It makes our own romantic failures seem so much less egregious. You’ve dated some callous men, but none so callous he’d pawn off your internal organs and still dare to stroke your hair with a gold band wrapped around his finger. Or maybe you’ve been caught cheating, but never while your wife was in space, spying on your drunken misdeeds through the lens of a high-powered telescope....

Hood feminism is unabashedly angry, a little asshole-like, proactive, and, sometimes, it’s illegal—but in her latest release writer Mikki Kendall argues that hood feminism is necessary for all women to win. Yet, from police brutality to the stereotypes pitted against women of color—like the Sassy Latina and the Strong Black Woman—to how poverty affects how kids are educated, Kendall does more than just lay out the facts. She puts every issue in perspective, contrasting how the current women’s equality landscape looks with a focus on poor and working-class women, and shows how a strong revamping could create what women of all races, ages, and income need: equity....

Over the years, great Swiss label Hat Hut (which operates under the name Hatology these days) has reissued plenty of gems from its catalog that were originally produced in the vinyl era, including material by Steve Lacy, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, and Anthony Braxton. But many of its early releases have remained out of print for decades. Luckily the label (owned by Werner Uehlinger) has begun selling or licensing some of those rare titles....

The challenge with Spanish baroque drama—and other putative classics that are not Shakespeare—is how not to make doilies out of them. If the peasants in Lope de Vega’s little garrison town of Fuente Ovejuna represent a medieval way of life in conflict with the incursion of new values, and if the immoderate brutality and sexual appetites of the Commander of the Order of Calatrava delegitimize his authority as an agent of Juana and Alfonso of Portugal, further justifying the imperial reign of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, all of that has to not sound like I just made it sound, which is the sound of who cares, get on with it, that crown is made of paper, what’s he talking about....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Thursday, October 19, 2017. Durbin confronts Jeff Sessions on his failure to help Chicago solve its gun violence issues Illinois senator Dick Durbin and U.S. attorney general Jeff Sessions got into a heated discussion over Chicago’s sanctuary city status at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday. Durbin told Sessions that undocumented immigrants are not causing Chicago’s gun violence problems, despite Sessions’ frequent protestations....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Monday, May 23, 2016. Chicago Police conduct “one of the largest gang raids in the city’s history” Thousands of dollars worth of drugs and many weapons were seized and 140 people were arrested in a large gang raid, police said Friday. The Chicago Police Department is hoping that weakening the gangs will also stop some of the rampant gun violence that’s plaguing the south and west sides....

During a recent tour of her residence—a two-story cottage, painted gray with a teal door—the concept of sharing came up a lot. Atop the stairs on the second floor, a cozy guest room welcomes folks who need to crash for the night. Just beyond that is Tibbs’s bright and airy master suite, featuring a vaulted ceiling, exposed beams, a midcentury-modern fireplace, and a seating area for friends to gather. “Most of my friends have keys....

If the world makes any sense, Garrison Keillor has made this joke already. The one about what happens when you leave a man too long in the midwestern outdoors, armed with nothing but a heap of refuse and a barn full of tools. What he does is, he makes a sort of monument to . . . it’s not clear what, exactly. But the fruits of whatever passion inspires him grow in the region’s out-of-the-way passages, appearing roadside in Wisconsin and Michigan and elsewhere....

Last weekend, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, city officials, and the guy who greased the skids on a $98 million federal construction loan, former U.S. transportation secretary Ray LaHood, celebrated the completion of the third and so far final phase of the Chicago Riverwalk. Here’s the really great thing about the Riverwalk: You can stroll along the south side of the Chicago River from the lakefront to Wolf Point (at the confluence of the North and South branches of the river), without having to surface at street level....

Windy City Paws Chicago Bark District Finalists: Chicago Pet Sitters, Simply Waggable

Flowers for Dreams Asrai Garden Finalists: Fleur Inc, Steve’s Flower Market

Opart Thai House Restaurant Runner-Up: Sticky Rice

Myopic Books Uncharted Books Finalists: Ravenswood Used Books, Open Books Ltd.