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Asrai Garden Bryn Mawr Jewelry Finalists: Nomadic Ant, Embellish Boutique

New City Moving The Professionals Moving Specialists Finalists: Move-tastic, Golan’s Moving & Storage

Logan Square Wicker Park Finalists: Boystown, River North, Lakeview

Launched in 1994, Blue Groove Lounge wasn’t early enough to be Chicago’s first hip-hop series. Before DJ Jesse de la Peña started Blue Groove on Monday nights at Elbo Room, rapper-producer Kingdom Rock was hosting parties at Blue Gargoyle in Hyde Park; DJ and producer P-Lee Fresh ran a north-side hip-hop club called Steps; and MC and promoter Duro Wicks hosted two crucial series, first at Lizard Lounge in Wicker Park and then at Lower Links in Lakeview....

The Reader‘s archive is vast and varied, going back to 1971. Every day in Archive Dive, we’ll dig through and bring up some finds. There you have it: 1990s Wicker Park encapsulated in a single letter. With all due respect, Weasel Walter Card carrying indie rocker and smartass P.S. Do I write for the Baffler yet?

It’s a little ironic that the impetus for Art Design Chicago, the hugely ambitious, yearlong celebration of Chicago’s art-making history—from the fire of 1871 to the turn of the 21st century—came from the west coast, as seen through the eyes of an east-coast critic. Smith wrote that the Los Angeles show had been underwritten by the Getty Center, “to the tune of about $10 million.” The budget for the program is $7....

As thousands of students walk out of classrooms and onto the streets in protest, young people across the country are politically mobilizing. “So many kids are rising up, and they’re demanding change,” said Daviana Soberanis, a junior at Northside College Prep who is a field organizing chair and board member of Vote16 Illinois. “Kids especially want to have their voices heard.” The constitution also requires that voting laws be consistent across the state....

At first I thought it’d be a cheap shot to include Billy Corgan in this issue—don’t we already know he’s one of the most ridiculous figures in Chicago’s music scene? But then I decided that his apparently obsessive desire to remain in the public eye at any cost was just too offensive to ignore. I’ve never liked any of his music, and Steve Albini’s notorious 1994 dismissal of Corgan’s most famous band (in a letter to the Reader) rings truer than ever: “Smashing Pumpkins are REO Speedwagon (stylistically appropriate for the current college party scene, but ultimately insignificant)....

In 2016, Reader critic Peter Margasak praised the “astonishing growth” and “cool, agile sound” of boundary-pushing local jazz trio Twin Talk, aka reedist Dustin Laurenzi, drummer Andrew Green, and bassist-vocalist Katie Ernst. On Friday, February 8, Twin Talk drop their third record, Weaver, via artists’ collective and online platform People, founded in 2018 by members of the National and Bon Iver. Weaver is full of graceful moments, and Gossip Wolf especially likes the loping rhythms and windswept melodies of “The Sky Never Ends,” which features Ernst’s lovely wordless vocals....

The Recording Academy announced the nominees for next year’s Grammys on Tuesday, and Chance the Rapper racked up seven nominations—including Best Rap Album for May’s Coloring Book. It’s hardly unprecedented for Chicago rappers to get a little extra love at Grammy time—Kanye received eight nominations this year—but there is something new about the Coloring Book nod. It’s the first streaming-only release to be nominated, a milestone made possible by an Academy rule change in June that granted such albums eligibility....

Dodes’ka-den (1970), which screens from 35-millimeter this Sunday at 7 PM at Doc Films, might be described as Akira Kurosawa’s most Italian film. The exuberant, if grimy, depiction of lower-class life sometimes recalls Pier Paolo Pasolini, while the episodic structure, broad humor, and sentimentality evoke the films of Federico Fellini. And for some of the exterior shots, Kurosawa and crew members painted their physical surroundings so that they would appear especially colorful, a technique that Michelangelo Antonioni had tried out in Red Desert (1964)....

CreativeMornings creativemornings.com/cities/chi, @Chicago_CM The monthly breakfast-hour lecture series CreativeMornings began in New York City in 2008 and has since sprouted chapters worldwide through which professionals in diverse fields gather before the workday begins, hungry for inspiration and snacks. When I moved from Boston last year, the Chicago outpost offered a quick way to connect with fellow designers and other like-minded locals. Lecturers here have ranged from designer Maria Pinto and sign painter Ches Perry to IDEO Chicago brand-experience expert Sara Frisk and tattooist Stephanie Brown....

Fatso’s Last Stand 2258 W. Chicago 773-245-3287 fatsoslaststand.com Runner-Up: Distilled Chicago

Lorena Cupcake at storebrandsoda.com @lorenacupcake Lorena Cupcake, 28, founded Store Brand Soda with the even more pseudonymous Hotdish Ramone in August 2014, inspired by the combo of music calendar and blog at garage-rock clearinghouse Victim of Time. Friendly, playful, and no-bullshit, Cupcake’s posts use a dirt-under-the-fingernails familiarity with Chicago underground rock to convey unpretentious, all-aboard enthusiasm rather than clubhouse exclusivity: “Dem Platinum Boys sound like the kind of old school butt rock that you listen to on a shitty radio in your back yard while drinking Miller Lite in a kiddie pool,” to quote a recent example....

Will Guzzardi and Carlos Ramirez-Rosa willguzzardi.com, @willguzzardi carlosrosa.org, @CDRosa The most liberal-voting neighborhood in Chicago is more than two miles from the lakefront. Logan Square, once home turf for the Mells, Berrioses, and other Democratic powerhouse families, has become the city’s progressive bastion. In contrast, lakefront communities such as Lincoln Park and the Gold Coast—neighborhoods from whence the “lakefront liberal” coinage came—have been trending conservative for years. In 2014, Logan Square voters elected then-27-year-old Will Guzzardi, one of the most progressive state representatives from Chicago....

Until I found a comb-bound catalog of “Tricks gathered from the four corners of the World” in a second-­hand store in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 2014, I didn’t have much clue about the history of Chicago magic—much less know that the city had pioneered its own style. Printed in 1940 by the National Magic Company (once located downtown in the Palmer House), the tattered volume features whimsical, colorful illustrations of vintage tricks on its cover (a rabbit out of a box, Chinese linking rings, et cetera)....

The all-purpose utility of Cafe Marie-Jeanne, on the suddenly restaurant-thick intersection of California and Augusta, is what makes it the most attractive among the newer venues to colonize this once desolate Humboldt Park junction. Pioneered by the California Clipper, a surge of restaurants and bars took a foothold here with the great Rootstock and, in more recent times, the Haywood Tavern, Spinning J Bakery and Soda Fountain, and Hogsalt Hospitality’s coffee shop, C....

Natalie Vu will work to find a snack that’s right for you. Vu’s career as a snackist was launched three years ago in San Jose where she worked as a server in a restaurant and at a milk tea shop. Trying to bolster her tips, she bought rice paper at the market, seasoned it with chili oil in her own kitchen, and sold it to friends. That’s contrary to the usual snack cycle, which she says slows during the summer when salons are at their busiest....

ARTIST: Brad Rohloff SHOW: The Eighth Annual Chili Synthesizer Cookoff with Mike Broers, Whitney Johnson, Jordan Zawideh, and Tim Nordberg MORE INFO: bredpress.com