Collaboratively † administrate empowered markets via plug-and-play networks. Dynamically procrastinate B2C users after installed base benefits. Proactively envisioned multimedia based expertise and cross-media growth strategies. Seamlessly visualize quality intellectual capital without superior collaboration and idea-sharing. Holistically pontificate installed base portals after maintainable products.Dramatically visualize customer directed convergence without revolutionary ROI.1 Efficiently unleash cross-media information without cross-media value. Quickly maximize timely deliverables for real-time schemas. Dramatically maintain clicks-and-mortar solutions without functional solutions....

One night, the cast of the improvised rock musical Anarchy receives the suggestion “Applebee’s.” The ensemble members step out one by one to sing a verse, each ending with “Can I get an appetizer?” As the stage fills, the refrain becomes more harmonic. The appropriately named Mike Gospel concludes by belting the phrase at a powerful volume. His vibrato echoes through the theater, and the show kicks off on that strong, heightened note that makes it clear: this is an improvised musical, not musical improv that aims for cheap rhymes and cleverness....

Not that this wolf is complaining, but Ty Segall seems to play in Chicago every two months! Dude just can’t stay away from our fair city. On Sunday, March 26, the grungy California rocker will put a different side of himself on display for us—and you can take “display” quite literally! That night, Drag City Records hosts an opening reception for the first solo show of Segall’s paintings, “Assterpiece Theatre,” at the label’s performance and exhibition space, Soccer Club Club (2923 N....

As Ivy Lab, London producers Gove “Sabre” Kidao and J “Stray” Fogel are associated with UK bass—an ambiguous melange of British-born electronic subgenres: drum ‘n’ bass, UK garage, dubstep, and a little bit of grime. But Ivy Lab don’t make that style of music as much as they thoroughly distort it; on 2015’s 20/20, Vol. 1, recorded when producer Laurence “Halogenix” Reading was a member of the group, they seem to slow their UK bass down with cement bricks—eliciting slow, mutant groans and unexpected bass drops....

Lifted Bells member Seth Engel has been writing and recording as Options since 2008, and July’s What You Want was one of my favorite local emo albums of last year. The guy’s a talented multi-instrumentalist and pop-savvy songwriter who uses complicated guitar patterns sparsely to deliver sharp, catchy songs. The full-band recordings of What You Want are magnetic, and Engel’s equally capable of delivering strong material when he goes acoustic, which he does on the new Tacit in Tact....

Respect the opening act of a wildly hyped sold-out show. This past Saturday, Sarah Lipstate (aka Noveller) was tasked with captivating a restless audience before the stunning spectacle that was St. Vincent’s set emerged. A solo instrumental performer, she was a human alone on the Riviera stage—her guitar and pedal board providing the only accompaniment—as she performed tracks from her recent No Dreams. Back in December, the Reader‘s Peter Margasak previewed a show Lipstate was playing at Schubas and described the record as a “collection of shimmering instrumentals built from sustained tones—sometimes produced by meticulously harnessed feedback, sometimes with the bowing of her electric guitar—that arrive as gently rolling, ambient tracks embedded with rich detail....

An adaptation of the Dostoevsky short story variously translated as “A Gentle Creature,” “The Gentle Woman,” and “The Meek One,” Gentle, the latest from TUTA Theatre (the acronym stands for “The Utopian Theatre Asylum”), is an examination of hurt male pride. It concerns a washed-up pawnbroker (Tom Dacey Carr) who, sensing himself a victim in life’s grand scheme, marries a desperate girl with few other options (Dani Tucker). Adapter-director Zeljko Djukic’s version is emotionally canny, with an especially effective performance by Tucker, who can say more with a trembling eyebrow than the depraved pawnbroker ever manages to convey in incessant monologues....

Whenever I listen to “Red Eyes,” one of several perfect tracks on the War on Drugs’ most recent album, Lost in the Dream (Secretly Canadian), I imagine how thrilled main man Adam Granduciel must have been after he wrote the dusty guitar lick that opens its chorus. His simple, skittering lead, backed by what sounds like a symphony of synths, makes for a beautiful wide-screen hook—and it hasn’t lost an iota of its luster in the six months I’ve been obsessively spinning the record....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, May 17, 2017. UIC report: In some categories, racial inequality in Chicago has gotten worse since the civil rights movement Racial inequality in Chicago has gotten worse since the civil rights movement in some respects, but there’s been progress in other areas, according to researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In a report called “A Tale of Three Cities: The State of Racial Justice in Chicago,” the researchers examined inequality between blacks, Latinos, and whites in categories including employment, economics, housing, and education....

As runners in the 41st annual Chicago Marathon bustle their way toward the finish line, the mellifluous melodies of the King of Rock will break the silence between breaths. A few miles north of the King of Rock at mile 8.8, Chicago’s LGBTQA running-and-walking organization, the Frontrunners/Frontwalkers, celebrate athleticism and queerness. For the past 28 marathons, the Frontrunners/Frontwalkers have put on a themed song-and-dance performance at their water station. At the 2017 marathon, four “Dancing Queen” Frontrunners/Frontwalkers dressed as ABBA, moved and grooved to the hits of 1970’s pop stars with pride flags in hand....

Adrienne Brown grew up on the east coast, got a PhD from Princeton, and moved to Chicago four years ago to teach at the University of Chicago, where she’s an assistant professor of English with a focus on 20th-century American and African-American cultural production. Her sold-out talk at the Chicago Humanities Festival on October 25 will draw from her nearly completed book on what might sound like an unlikely topic: the intersection of skyscrapers and race....

In Book Swap, a regular feature that is entirely unique, about books, and not at all related to the music feature In Rotation, a Reader staffer recommends two to five books and then asks a local wordsmith, literary enthusiast, or publishing-adjacent professional to do the same. It is awesome. Way better than it would be if it were about records. When I am especially tired and angry, I read romance novels for comfort because I know they will always end happily, with the characters learning to bring out the best in each other....

Mike Sula Curry age mono ramen, Ajida I’m tempted to launch a parallel rant to Monday’s barbecue tirade, this one about our troubling ramen situation. Just like the glut of unexceptional barbecue dilettantes that’s swamped the city, the tide of new ramen joints is mostly unimpressive too. With one notable suburban exception and another arguably acceptable one in Chinatown, most are attempting to do too many things instead of focusing on just one....

Anyone interested in the question of where queer artistic representation stands today should see “Strange Bedfellows.” I deliver this recommendation not because I think this show will thrill minds and conquer hearts, but because, in its sometimes hesitant and sometimes even problematic ways, this traveling collection of collaborative work manages to be evocative rather than simply declarative. It leaves open the many questions it raises: What do we mean by queer art today?...

Voyage to Italy The Italian neorealist classic Open City is currently screening at the Gene Siskel Film Center in a new 4K DCP digital restoration, said to be a marked improvement on the previously distributed 35mm prints. (As of this writing, I haven’t seen the new digital version, so I obviously can’t say that it is in fact an improvement, but at the risk of inciting the ongoing film-versus-digital argument, I will say that I’ll take anything over the shoddy, barely visible print I saw a few years ago....

Frank Ockenfels 3/AMC Thanks for the help getting our buds out of Terminus, guys. So many spoilers ahead . . . Despite a number of fancy slogans that refer to their solidarity, it’s safe to say that the cannibalistic residents of Terminus are guilty of putting an I in team more often than not. Sure, they’ve been burned, but who hasn’t in the new reality? Not unlike zombies traveling in packs, they stick together because it makes it easier to feed, and in a merciless few minutes of television, we see their method of slaughtering human prey....

From Ernst Lubitsch’s “grotesque comedy” The Oyster Princess In a recent blog post, film scholar David Bordwell examines The Wolf of Wall Street to revisit some old questions about narrative form in cinema. It’s a valuable piece that gets into the nitty-gritty of how movies work—and like much of Bordwell’s writing, it’s both rigorous and accessible, communicating the deep pleasure he derives from watching movies. In one section, he investigates Wolf‘s tone of “grotesque comedy....

A twenty five year anniversary is a considerable achievement, especially when it comes to Hollywood marriages or restaurants, and owner Trushar Patel has real reason to be proud of his Hyde Park Indian and Southern comfort food cafeteria-style local gem, Rajun Cajun, officially in business since 1993. And you can join in the celebration during the entire month of December with a special 25% savings when you dine at the restaurant (takeout and delivery orders not included)....

Amber Liu’s tomboy fashion and tattoos have made her stand out among her peers in the crowded K-pop market, but they pale in comparison to the force of her personality. Liu is most known for being a member of f(x), an inventive girl group that’s had some success among Western audiences. In 2013, they became the first K-pop band to play SXSW (though in a post-BTS world, being the first K-pop group to play an American festival seems more like a relic of wildly different times, not something that took place just a few short years ago)....

In 2015 Ben Chasny, sole constant member of the long-running Six Organs of Admittance, created what he calls the hexadic system in an attempt to break familiar patterns and habits in his playing and writing. The rules, which revolve around the dealing of a deck of cards in relation to notes on the guitar, injected a jarring, unstable quality into his music, first in an electric configuration on Hexadic and then, with even greater displacement, in a solo acoustic singer-songwriter mode on Hexadic II....