Posts

I’m not sure if Neil Steinberg is more aware of himself than other people are, or simply writes about himself more honestly. At any rate, in Wednesday’s Sun-Times he admits (to his own horror) that he’s coming around a little on Donald Trump: “The really scary part is, at least while reading the story [about Trump buckling down to serious and traditional campaigning in Iowa], I found myself nodding my head, thinking, ‘Yes, yes, Donald Trump, working hard, maybe the man deserves to be president....

“I’m actually very excited,” says Sophia Wong Boccio, founder and executive director of the Asian Pop-Up Cinema. The fifth annual festival runs from September 10-October 10 and features 22 films spanning East Asia. Though the pandemic created challenges for the festival, Wong Boccio overcame those hurdles by creating a unique hybrid film experience—seven films are available to see in-person via a socially distant movie experience at the Davis Drive-In Theater in Lincoln Yards, while the rest are available to rent online and enjoy in the comfort of one’s own home....

On February 22, Governor J.B. Pritzker signed HB3653 (also known as the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity – Today or SAFE-T Act) into law. The massive criminal justice reform bill sprawls across 764 pages and makes changes to some three dozen existing Illinois laws as well as introduces new ones. It’s been decried as an “anti-police” bill by law enforcement groups, and the president of Chicago’s police officer union called it “nightmare legislation” that was intended as an “attack on law enforcement in this state....

Derrick Carter All the Way Kay Finalists: DJ Ca$h Era, Soulphonetics

Kris Lori Fuentes Cortes Todd Rosenberg Finalists: Tyler Core, James Richards IV

Looking forward to the year in beer, I asked brewers at four breweries that opened in 2015 to tell me about the just-released beers they’re most excited to drink in 2016. Ones containing brettanomyces, lactobacillus, and pediococcus—strains of yeast and bacteria that make beer sour and/or funky—appeared on the lists of all the brewers I talked to, evidence the sour-beer trend doesn’t appear to be waning anytime soon. Hopslam Ale (Bell’s) Dubovick puts this imperial IPA brewed with honey in his top five beers of 2015....

Last July I told myself I was done with Abe Conlon. But here I go again. But what comes across strongest is the picture of Conlon as arrogant and dismissive; a belittler and a berater prone to unpredictable explosions of rage; exhibit A in the case against culinary toxicity. Conlon had served cannabis-infused dinners with his underground supper club X-Marx before he opened Fat Rice, and I knew he loved to smoke weed, so of course I wanted to feature him in Kitchen Toke....

When William Nathaniel Jackson arrived in Philadelphia in the early 1900s, he became a new man. He was fleeing from somewhere near the Carolinas when he traveled north. There, he took a new name, made a new family, and built a new life. Today, a century after Jackson’s move, Young’s exploration of time feels eerily more relevant than ever—a blending of the past and present. The combination of a global pandemic that disproportionately affects Black communities and widespread protests against racism-driven police violence feels both unprecedented and reminiscent of past struggles....

San Soo Gab San Cho Sun Ok Restaurant Finalists: Jin Ju, Passerotto

Without putting words in anyone’s mouth, I think I can say pretty confidently that the women of the Reader believe that we should celebrate International Women’s Day every day; that’s why we strive to write about bad ass women as often as we can. But since the patriarchy says there can only be one, official International Women’s Day, we might as well take the time to look back on some Reader stories, past and present, that celebrate some of the best ladies around....

Courtesy of Sewingneedle’s Facebook/Jillian Tackaberry Sewingneedle Chicago outfit Sewingneedle play glum, weathered postpunk. The group weds emo and slowcore, infusing the latter’s plodding melodies with a sense of foreboding. Sewningneedle’s music might be a lot more depressing if it didn’t have much of a grasp on songwriting—while the band plays like its got a perpetual gray cloud hanging overhead its songs are direct and forceful, and sometimes contain nuggets of sweetness beneath the layers of gloom....

This week’s gig poster is for a livestream birthday celebration by legendary singer and record producer Michael McDonald, perhaps best known as a longtime Doobie Brother. To some, not even “legendary” is a strong enough word: as J. Niimi wrote for the Reader in 2006, “Beyond the physical resemblance, Michael McDonald is God.” To participate, please e-mail scollojulin@chicagoreader.com with your name, contact information, and original design or drawing. We won’t be able to publish everything we receive, but we’ll feature as many as possible....

Wrapports, the investment group that owns the Sun-Times, created Aggrego four years ago to produce content for its suburban papers. Those papers were sold and Aggrego shifted to producing content for the Sun-Times Network of local news sites. In her coverage of the Aggrego deal, Crains‘s Lynne Marek appropriately raises an eyebrow. “So much for bolstering the separation of Tribune Publishing and rival Chicago Sun-Times parent Wrapports,” Marek’s story begins, noting that Michael Ferro, who owns most of Wrapports (and fathered Aggrego), now controls Tribune Publishing, though he says he gave all his Sun-Times stock to a charitable trust....

Sundays With the Tigers at East Room 2828 W. Medill 773-276-9603 eastroomchicago.com In the past year, Logan Square’s cash-only speakeasy lite emerged as a Chicago hip-hop hotbed, hosting DJ nights by Grammy-nominated flattop Stefan Ponce, rising Adult Swim affiliate Thelonious Martin, and Closed Sessions cofounder RTC; Vic Mensa premiered “U Mad” there during a set in April. The club goes hardest on Sundays, when Vic Lloyd and Joe Fresh Goods (plus weekly guests like Holt and Peter Cottontale) host a cover-free party with “no silly dress code,” filling the bar’s large dance floor with the latest local juke, rap, and Future cuts (there are also five-dollar whiskey gingers)....

L’ Patron Runner-Up: Big Star

Fun game: make an 80s hard-rock/hair-metal/stadium-goth/early-thrash-metal playlist, sneak a track by LA’s contemporary Black Veil Brides onto it, and see if anyone notices. Bonus points if you pass it by anyone old enough to remember some of the junk-and-fire-everywhere hard-rock videos that looked like they were filmed in an unused corner of a Mad Max set and were de rigueur back in the day. We’re as far removed in time from the dawn of the styles of music BVB plays as the 60s were from the heyday of big bands—and like always, retro is up for grabs....

Birth and postpartum doula Cassie Calderone returned to work from her own maternity leave in late March, just a week after the city’s shelter-in-place order went into effect. Her first birth was an induction, scheduled in advance, and the baby was born healthy and to happy parents at West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, just outside the city limits, on March 27. But because of precautions due to COVID-19, this birth looked different than any other in Calderone’s four years of practice....