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Best known for the cult psychodrama Possession (1981), writer-director Andrzej Żuławski made his feature debut ten years earlier with The Third Part of the Night, and it shows him already at the height of his powers. A sustained nightmare about societal and personal breakdown, it presents one man’s descent into madness during the Nazi occupation of Poland, though the story is hard to follow (perhaps by design). Żuławski divulges important information about the characters in short, unexpected bursts, and the plot moves sinuously between the hero’s present, past, and dream life....

Last August alderman Ed Burke (14th) and northwest-side alderman Gilbert Villegas (36th) said they planned to push for removing the Balbo tributes, and a month later they were ready to introduce an ordinance to City Council. But there was stiff opposition from some local Italian-American civic leaders and history buffs, who view the landmarks as a source of ethnic pride, and the proposal seemed to stall. More than 30 civic groups, including the League of Women Voters, the South Side branch of the NAACP, and Women’s March Chicago have endorsed the change....

Last night at Elastic, clarinetist James Falzone played with Wayfaring, his duo with bassist Katie Ernst—his final gig as a Chicagoan. He and his family are moving to Seattle, Washington, where he’ll become chair of the music department at Cornish College of the Arts. For nearly a decade and a half Falzone has been a crucial part of the local jazz and improvised-music scene, leading groups such as Allos Musica Ensemble, Renga Ensemble, and Klang as well as working as a sideman in plenty of others, among them Vox Arcana and Frank Rosaly’s Cicada Music....

Becky Shaw A 35-year-old temp worker with a history of cutting herself, Becky Shaw can boast an above-average fuckedupedness quotient, but then so can everyone else in Gina Gionfriddo’s 2009 play. Max, for instance, presents as an acerbic, hyperrational banker when he’s really a hot mess inside. His pseudo stepsister, Suzanna, can’t take responsibility for herself. Suzanna’s new husband, Andrew, is a sucker for a lady in distress. Only Suzanna’s mom, Suzanne, has come to terms with life—if merely by recognizing that, while money can’t buy love, it can at least secure a warm body at night....

Xuan Nguyen Gisella Tomasio Finalists: Anne Marie Metro, Meghan Spear, Kelly Carpenter, Laurie Barry, Elyse Hahner, Jensen & Associates, Toni Yang, Patricia Brewer, CJ Jensen, Michael Brown, Cary Wong, Blueprint Wealth Advisors, Erik Stowers, Mark Mappa, Michael Stahl, Todd Much, Michael Riback

Rogers Park Avondale Finalists: Uptown, Albany Park

Few emerging songwriters have captivated me in quite the same way as Boston’s Sidney Gish. On her breakout album, 2017’s No Dogs Allowed, she confronts her life experience with wit and fun, using self-aware lyrics and refined layers of guitars, vocals, and drums. The record—whose goofy, surrealistic cover prominently displays the Microsoft Paint toolbar—comes following Gish’s 2016 debut full-length, Ed Buys Houses, plus an EP and two compilations she describes as “dump albums” (that is, she used them to share rough material she didn’t want to develop formally)....

The chalkboard menu at Revival Food Hall’s Danke doesn’t specifically say what species of gore is in the blood paté. But given it appears on a sandwich called the Backyard Dracula, the natural assumption is that it’s human*. The sanguineous sandwich is the October special at the charcuterie bar from the fellows behind Logan Square’s Deutsch-ish Table, Donkey and Stick. One of the few original concepts in the marvelous, sprawling, ever-thronged food hall, Danke features cured meats from chef Scott Manley (formerly of Vie and Blackbird), who—in view of his work at TDS and, more recently, Steadfast—has emerged as one of the most accomplished charcutiers in the city....

Au Cheval Pizzeria Uno Finalists: Funkenhausen, Torchio Pasta Bar, Joe’s Imports Wine Bar

I was somewhere in the middle of Bill Clinton’s speech at John Lewis’s funeral when it hit me—I’m so through with this guy. Not sure what it was about Clinton’s speech that irritated me the most. It might have been the passive-aggressive shot he took at Bernie Sanders when he slyly smiled and “thanked” South Carolina congressman James Clyburn for “with a stroke of a hand, ending an intrafamily fight within our party....

Imagine you’ve spent months at a time on the road with your band for more than two years running, bouncing between opening slots, festival appearances, and headlining sets in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and Europe. You’ve been enthralling audiences with the frenetic yet tightly controlled energy of your immersive live show, supporting a bold and proudly unconventional debut album. Continued efforts to flatten the curve of the pandemic mean they’re now self-isolating separately and confined to livestreaming their performances....

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago—or, in this case, Texas.

When British guitarist and vocalist Anna Calvi released her self-titled debut album in 2011, it felt like she’d emerged as a fully formed icon. Drawing from rock, punk, opera, and flamenco guitar, Calvi combined talent, eclecticism, and swagger in a way that had less in common with indie songwriters of her generation than with the likes of Annie Lennox, Prince, and Nick Cave. After putting out her third full-length, 2018’s Hunter, she wrote music for season five of Peaky Blinders, and insofar as that job asked her to delve into the mind of crime boss Tommy Shelby, it might’ve inspired her to look at her recent work with fresh eyes....

What makes a person withdraw from the seen and known world most people live in in favor of an environment fashioned solely according to his or her own visionary fantasies? Failure, disappointment, opportunity, true ecstatic experience? In the case of Eddie Owens Martin, it seems it must have been some combination of all those that transformed a son of sharecroppers in rural Georgia into the berobed creator of Pasaquan—the immersive art environment Martin worked on for the last 30 or so years of his life....

ARTIST: Ryan DugganSHOW: Eddie Pepitone at Lincoln Hall on Thu 1/8MORE INFO: ryanduggan.com

Seth Olenick Guess who’s performing at Afropunk Chicago? Arts collective Afropunk debuted its festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music back in 2005. As the fest celebrates its ten-year anniversary this year it’s hitting the road, curating a handful shows around the country as part of the Most Wicked Party Tour. And the Reader is happy to announce the lineup for Afropunk Chicago.

After saxophonist Archie Shepp became known in the 1960s as a fierce musical and political voice in what was then called the avant-garde, he charted a different path. In 1977, Shepp recorded a collection of traditional spirituals (and one jazz standard) in a duet session with pianist Horace Parlan titled Goin’ Home, which is as reverential as his earlier records are fervent. Saxophonist and pianist Jason Moran looks back at the direction and repertoire of that 70s album on the new Let My People Go, a duo with Shepp that compiles material from performances recorded in 2017 and 2018....

Yolk Pizzeria Uno Finalists: Funkenhausen, Travelle at The Langham