Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. Hey, did you read: • The rules for being a female comedian? (“Be funny. Be pretty. But not too pretty!!!”) —Aimee Levitt • That Steve Harvey flubbed the announcement of Miss Universe? —Kevin Warwick • How Jeff Bezos has improved the financial outlook of the Washington Post by focusing on its technology and online user experience? (Might not be available without a subscription....

The first lesson Gerald Vernon shared with his conceal-and-carry class is, to him, the most fundamental: “The only thing that stops bad people with guns is good people with guns.” “Over the last 20 years, I’ve been places I don’t think a lot of other black people have been,” he told the class. “I’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of money traveling the country and getting this training so I could bring it back to the community....

Q: I’m a lady considering taking on a foot fetishist as a slave. He would do chores around my house, including cleaning and laundry, and give foot rubs and pedicures in exchange for getting to worship and jack off to my model-perfect feet when I’ve decided he’s earned it. Am I morally obligated to tell my roommates? Technically the guy would be in their common space too. I will fully vet him with references and meet him in a neutral location at least once—and anything else you might suggest I do for security’s sake....

FX Demian Bichir on The Bridge When a show comes back for a second season, sometimes it’s a triumphant return. Other times a sophomore outing is just plain sophomoric. Unfortunately, that’s the case for FX’s The Bridge. Coshowrunner Meredith Stiehm left to work on Homeland again, prompting former producing partner Elwood Reid to ditch the serial killer angle (which he deemed a “sugar rush”) and, in his words to TVGuide....

The blue-collar DIY spirit of Chicagoans’ artistic practice is one of the city’s calling cards. Away from the oppressive glare of the art business on the coasts, artists of all stripes—musicians, playwrights, painters, writers—can take time to develop and solidify their practice. That’s why so much of the greatest work to emerge from Chicago seems to bubble up from the underground fully formed. As work on Looks of a Lot ramped up, I spoke in turn to Moran, Gates, and Vandermark, and I’ve edited those interviews together into a conversation....

It’s only been a few months since Pinwheel Records opened near the 18th Street Pink Line stop, but Pilsen isn’t done welcoming new record stores. Head east from Pinwheel for half a mile or so, and you’ll find 606 Records, at 1808 S. Allport; it’s nowhere near the 606 (the elevated path also known as the Bloomingdale Trail), but it is across the street from Thalia Hall. The new shop, which specializes in vinyl and cassettes by lesser-known musicians and labels from around the world, had its grand opening last Saturday....

Former Chicagoan Ben Pirani has been performing as his R&B alter ego Benjamin for more than six years now, and next week the project’s full-length debut, Arriving, will be released on Cherries Records. Benjamin’s first physical release was an ultralimited two-song cassette on local label Priority Male, and a couple of years ago Cherries released his first vinyl single, “Love Is Gonna Let You Down” b/w “Not a Moment Too Soon,” shortly after his relocation to New York City....

A former editor introduced me to the Poetry Foundation‘s Poem of the Day. His parents were poets—not amateurs who scribbled doggerel on birthday cards, but professionals who published books and taught in a university writing program—and I imagine that for him, poetry was not something that was painstakingly pored over and decoded in a classroom but an especially beautiful and compressed way of expressing complex thoughts and feelings, one that’s not incompatible with the language of everyday life....

It, the new big-budget adaptation of the first half of Stephen King’s 1986 horror novel, might have worked better as a silent film. The movie is visually striking but lacks a single well-developed character; the human subjects are defined by one trait a piece, and they have little to say that couldn’t be conveyed by simple title cards. Director Andy Muschietti has a strong sense of blocking—his arrangement of people vis-à-vis the spaces they inhabit is always dynamic and pleasurable to look at....

Ken Krimstein draws wacky gag cartoons—one classic shows two adjacent storefronts: the window sign in the left one reads MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY, while the window sign on the right reads MEDICAL CHEEZ DOODLES DISPENSARY—but the artist doesn’t look the least bit demented. He’s more like a cross between a boomer hipster and the favored uncle who shares his best anecdotes at first-night seder. I would never have pegged him as a midcentury philosophy buff....

There’s a culture war going on in Jefferson Park, a middle-class community in Chicago’s northwest-side bungalow belt that’s home to many city and county workers. Some longtime residents want the neighborhood to remain an enclave of low-slung houses and two-flats, where driving and parking are prioritized. Others, many of them newer arrivals, want to see the community become more urban, with more apartments near the Jefferson Park Transit Center, and better conditions for walking and biking....

In 1922 the Chicago Tribune held an architectural design competition for its new Michigan Avenue headquarters. The judges selected architects John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood’s proposal: a neo-Gothic tower, the kind typically seen in 12th- to 16th-century Europe, denoted by a buttressed crown and heavy ornamentation such as gargoyles, fantastical engravings, and scalloping. At the request of Colonel Robert McCormick, who headed the Tribune at the time, correspondents took stones from such monuments as the Great Pyramid, the Parthenon, Notre-Dame Cathedral, and 145 other architectural triumphs....

Once upon a time, when a label existed specifically to release a musician’s own output, it was called a vanity label. These days, though, putting out your own music is simply a smart decision. Lots of Chicagoans are doing it, some with imprints of their own and many more through Bandcamp, Datpiff, or similar platforms—but Aerophonic, the label that Dave Rempis started last year, stands out in the crowd. It casts the saxophonist in a flattering light as an improviser, collaborator, and aesthete: the album covers all bear sharp, geometric artwork by Johnathan Crawford, and the six releases so far capture Rempis in an impressive variety of instrumental contexts, including his working bands the Rempis Percussion Quartet and Wheelhouse....

Yes, it can be annoying when the only obstacle between you and one of the most magnificent pastries you will ever eat is a tongue twister of a name. But it’s not so hard. Just say “queen ah-mahn.” It means “butter cake” in Breton, the language traditionally spoken in Brittany, in northwest France. What should really annoy you is that Bretons have been making this magnificent confection—composed of dozens of layers of pastry and salted butter covered in a crust of caramelized sugar—for at least 150 years, but until recently it was virtually unknown in the U....

AP Photos Rahm Emanuel: Once an ambitious, calculating political operative, always an ambitious, calculating political operative. Having nothing better to do on a lovely Friday, I’ve spent the better part of my day taking a trip through the hidden caverns of Mayor Emanuel’s brain. Apparently, there was a 12-year embargo on releasing documents—like the Emanuel memos—as part of a larger federal initiative to keep Americans ignorant about the crummy stuff their government is up to....

The meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011 is still raw in the minds of many. That’s partly the basis for Blue Fish II, a conceptual performance piece from Chicagoan and native of Japan Ayako Kato of Art Union/Humanscape. The latest installment of her Blue Fish series takes place November 14 and 15 at the Chicago Cultural Center as part of the third annual SpinOff contemporary dance series, presented by the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events....

Singer-songwriter Garland Jeffreys has had a bit of a resurgence over the past four years after subtly refining the style he originally crafted on his seminal 1973 self-titled solo debut and 1977’s Ghost Writer. A native New Yorker, Jeffreys was close friends with Lou Reed, and their music shares definite similarities—in particular, the constant NYC references, the lyrics reflecting social conflict, and the easy protopunk designation. (Jeffreys’s song “Wild in the Streets” went on to become a skate-punk anthem for the Circle Jerks....

Q: Many years ago, what was for me a bizarre sexual incident happened to me, and while I’ve largely laughed it off with no traumatic effects, the incident has always puzzled me. For the record, I’m a straight man in a good, loving marriage with no sexual issues to report. I was off on a golf weekend with a bunch of uber-hetero buddies. We stayed in a condo that didn’t have enough beds for everyone, so I ended up sharing a bed with an ex-marine....

Mike Sula Buffeted, Tava As a general rule, the Indian buffet exists as a kind of a challenge to your intestinal mettle. The promise of cheap, repeating shovel loads of chicken tikka masala, saag paneer, chana masala, and dal makhani can interrupt the neural pathways that ordinarily allow you to exercise caution in the face of potentially dangerous material of uncertain age and origin. The folks behind Tava in Morton Grove address this perception head on and take great pains to emphasize the freshness and quality of their AYCE lunch buffet....

I had planned to do a story about Ukrainian Village’s the Winchester for a while—mainly about how, in a city of places that say they’re “neighborhood” restaurants (but don’t open until dinner), the Winchester really aims to be an all-day neighborhood hangout, available before sunset and doing quality food at night that makes it a competitor to places that have the luxury of focusing on dinner alone. It’s a tough thing to pull off—you can get typed as a breakfast/brunch place and then people have a hard time thinking of you as a serious dinner spot (that’s been the case with Logan Square’s Jam, which has made several attempts to launch dinner)....