Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Tuesday, July 25, 2017. ICE chief singles out Chicago, NYC, San Francisco, and Philadelphia as the “worst” sanctuary cities Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, and Philadelphia are the “worst” sanctuary cities in the U.S., according to Thomas Homan, acting federal director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Washington Examiner reported on Monday. Homan singled out Chicago particularly, blaming the city’s gun violence on its and Cook County’s policy of harboring undocumented immigrants....

The Baffler has left us twice, the first time when it went on hiatus for three years and the second when its operations defected to Boston. But now it’s back—literally. Tomorrow the University of Chicago’s International House will host Their City and Ours: A Forum on Developmental Disorder, a live and Chicago-centric version of the magazine’s current issue in which there’s only one story that matters: Rick Perlstein’s salvo, “There Goes the Neighborhood: The Obama Library Lands in Chicago....

Mike Sula Half slab, Bro-N-Laws Bar-B-Que Which do you want first—the good news or the bad news? I wouldn’t be the self-flagellating grump I am if I didn’t seek out whatever new barbecue joints have popped up from month to month. So it’s time to catch up with two newer entrants into the field, and an older one that only recently pinged on my bar-b-dar. Mike Sula Pulled pork, Husky Hog Bar-B-Que Husky Hog Bar-B-Que graduated from a food truck to a small corner spot in Bridgeport with a few picnic tables inside and a small kitchen dominated by a Southern Pride offset smoker, which, when I visited, wasn’t giving off even a hint of aroma....

Last week, after a series of community meetings about the future of Jackson Park where some residents had been either shut out or effectively shut up, Fifth Ward alderman Leslie Hairston hosted an expanded ward meeting at the South Shore Cultural Center where everyone was offered the chance to talk. The center includes a superfluous building. As designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, the center is to be a three-building complex grouped around a plaza—a bulky 180-foot tower that’ll house the Obama museum and two flat-topped one-story structures....

Last fall I wrote about the vitality of Chicago’s jazz and improvised music scene after discovering the playing of pianist Matt Piet, who’s part of a new wave of players melding the rigor of free improvisation with the oblique rhythms and harmony of 60s postbop. That soon led me to other locals on the rise, like tenor saxophonist Jake Wark and drummer Bill Harris, who work with Piet in a trio called Four Letter Words....

Every so often I’ll fall for a song because of a short, inexplicable moment that’s not written into the fabric of the tune—it could be a mistake or a genuine reaction to what’s going on that’s been caught on tape, and for one reason or another it stays in and catches my ear. In the case of “Block the Sun,” the opening tune from the recent self-titled debut EP by local punk band Harebrain, that unexpected moment happens at the end of the song when the sound of an aluminum can popping open rings out above a bit of fading guitar distortion....

Megan Baker Rhea Butcher and Cameron Esposito Chicago expats Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher both got their start as open mikers here in the city and have since moved to LA where they cohost the podcast Wham Bam Pow, coproduce the stand-up showcase Put Your Hands Together, and maintain separate stand-up careers, all as an engaged couple. They’re currently on tour together to promote Esposito’s new album, Same Sex Symbol, which just surpassed albums from Sarah Silverman, Jim Gaffigan, and Patton Oswalt on the comedy charts....

South Africa’s Make-Overs, a gnarly and noisy two-piece, arrived in Chicago to play Do-Division Festival at the very end of May, and after over two months of touring around the country, they play one more show tomorrow at the Hideout before heading back to their homeland. The explosive garage-punk band—Martinique Pelser on drums and vocals and Andreas Schonfeldt on guitar and vocals—who’ve released material on local label HoZac, have turned Chicago into their home base over the past nine weeks or so, living with Bric-a-Brac owners Nick Mayor and Jen Lemasters while not out on the road, and playing at any local venue they could, like Cole’s, the Mutiny, and the Whistler....

Some local city agencies apparently aren’t DTF. A spokesperson for the CTA said the transportation agency rejected the ads because they violate its advertising policy, which prohibits ads containing profanity. According to the CTA’s website, it bans ads that promote “infidelity, escort services, and sexually-oriented products or businesses.” O’Hare officials referred to guidelines that deny ad content that promotes sexual conduct or what could be interpreted as sexual innuendo. The Chicago Park District could not be reached for comment....

Let’s face it: American society has weird hang-ups about sleep. Be it in the workplace, academia, or supposedly public spaces, rest is either (a) a bought-and-paid-for private luxury or (b) a mark of indolence instead of, you know, one of the most fundamental biological necessities shared by literally every living being. But for people of color, some shut-eye in a car or park or Ivy League common room can be rewarded by encounters with paranoid Caucasian bystanders or hostile law enforcement....

A promotional image for Taylor Swift’s album 1989 Last night, 24-year-old pop powerhouse Taylor Swift released the second single from her forthcoming album, 1989. “Out of the Woods” takes a very different tone than the no-worries number “Shake It Off,” released last August—it’s a tense ballad with stark, punchy production. Big drums compete with Swift’s vocals in the foreground, while whispers of synth bass snake around the back. For a young songwriter who’s staked her claim in the pop world by writing flexible, athletic melodies, “Out of the Woods” is something of a sharp turn: its chorus pounds out just two notes bunched together in tight, dense syllables....

Midwestern Cuisine The Hazzard family have been farming in northeastern Illinois since they arrived in this country in 1847; for the past few generations, they’ve settled in Pecatonica, a small village just west of Rockford. During the first half of the 20th century, Marquis wheat was one of the most popular varietals of the grain in the midwest and Canada. So it’s entirely likely that Andy Hazzard is not the first Hazzard to grow Marquis wheat....

Hey, what are you doing right now? Nothing? Cool. How about you just listen to Commodores’ “Nightshift”? Nah? OK, got it. Are you sure you don’t want to listen to Commodores’ “Nightshift”? Because I kind of get the feeling that you want to listen to it. I mean, it’s a pretty great song. Oh, not your thing? Too 80s? Too cheesy? Sure, I understand. But wait, are you sure you don’t want to listen to “Nightshift”?...

Over time it’s become clear that Thurston Moore thrives on collaboration, and with the dissolution of Sonic Youth he’s managed to regain his footing as a bandleader with this lean quartet. While he’s been involved with countless side projects over his long career, it’s only now that he has a working band in which the members seem comfortable in their roles. The group’s recent second album, Rock n Roll Consciousness (Harvest/Caroline), reflects a deep ensemble dynamic, guitarist James Sedwards employing a twined attack that conjures the more outwardly psychedelic excursions he took with Lee Ranaldo—in fact, many of the extended solos on the new record reflect Ranaldo’s aesthetic more than Moore’s own predilection for noisy chaos....

I was eating a burrito at the local Chipotle on Monday because until earlier that morning my car was stuck within a deep drift of icy snow. We were on our way to replenish our depleted pantry, but we needed lunch. The point is, I was sitting there eating my food when I heard something over the speakers that sparked a memory. What seemed super faint at the start came rushing back with beautiful clarity: one of the greatest, most-haunting pop songs ever made....

The current Museum of Contemporary Art exhibition “The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now,” in part explores the history and legacy of Chicago’s massively influential Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Reedist and composer Roscoe Mitchell was a founding member of the organization and became internationally recognized for his membership in the Art Ensemble of Chicago. But that was then. Perhaps more than any AACM figure, Mitchell looks forward, making new work and collaborating with an ever-expanding cast of dynamic, progressive musicians....

On April 12, Chicago rapper Terrance Boykin, better known as Bump J, was freed from a federal prison in Elkton, Ohio. Bump J built his career and citywide reputation on a slew of Goon Squad mixtapes in the first half of the 2000s, then became the first Chicagoan to participate in DJ Drama’s celebrated Gangsta Grillz mixtape series, releasing Chicagorilla in 2006. (It came out a few months after Lil Wayne set the high-water mark for the series with Dedication 2....

Singer-guitarist Maceo Haymes and singer-keyboardist Nick Hennessey are journeymen musicians whose work behind the scenes backing musicians onstage—they occasionally performed with Chance the Rapper during his ascent, and they continue to collaborate with him—have made their soul group, the O’My’s, a crucial point connecting Chicago’s hip-hop scene with young musicians who dabble in R&B, funk, jazz, and soul. Their new full-length, Tomorrow (Haight), shows how easily those worlds intersect. On “Puddles,” pitter-patter percussion and watery guitars provide a bedrock for hushed, luxurious vocal harmonies and forcefully rounded, rapid raps from the great Saba; throughout the song the band make measured movements to ensure that every transition fits their relaxed mood....

Revolutionary virtuosic guitarist and Libertyville native Tom Morello has tried on a lot of hats since the 2000 dissolution of his pioneering hyperpolitical funk-metal band Rage Against the Machine: there’s been the supergroup Audioslave (fronted by Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell); his protest folk project the Nightwatchman; his stint as a Bruce Springsteen sideman; his collaboration with Boots Riley of the Coup under the name Street Sweeper Social Club; and most recently Prophets of Rage, a Rage Against the Machine quasi reunion that includes members of Public Enemy and Cypress Hill....

The connection between oral traditions and dance is a sturdy one. Not only is dancing believed to have been a way to transmit myths in ancient times—a kind of mnemonic device that uses the body to preserve epic stories in the mind—but oral transmission is, even today, the principal way newcomers to ballet companies learn centuries-old ballets. When Trosztmer encounters the machine, he comes unhinged—at the joints, not at the neurons—skating and gliding on his knees....