The two young tenor saxophonists leading the newish quartet Black Diamond don’t indulge in the bravado and flash that so many green jazz musicians exhibit when they set out to make a recording. Artie Black and Hunter Diamond sound much wiser than their years—they’re 28 and 27, respectively—on their impressive debut album, Mandala (Shifting Paradigm). They embrace a buoyancy and airiness that most contemporary saxophonists avoid in favor of something heavier and more fiery; together they evoke Lennie Tristano acolytes Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz—in their timbre, in their elegant unison lines, and in the way they solo together, braiding improvised patterns that effortlessly shimmer and float....

Mike Sula Plantain sandwich, aka jibarito, Maracas Sometime in the last year, a restaurant of fairly historic importance closed its doors and—at least as far as the food media were concerned—nobody noticed. Borinquen,* in Humboldt Park, was the alleged home of the jibarito, a notoriously messy meat-lettuce-cheese-tomato-mayo structure held together by flattened, fried green plantains. There are some questions about the claim that owner Juan C. Figueroa actually invented the jibarito, as he’s admitted reading about a similar sandwich back on the island, but there’s no doubt its glory and fame spread far and wide from California Avenue, leading to copycats across the city and country as well as interesting interpretations like the very local gyro jibarito and, apocryphally, the heebarito—a Reuben built between two schmaltz-fried latkes....

“Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.” —The Wizard of Oz Actually, the secret of Josh’s appeal isn’t at all mysterious: Despite his pudgy, messy looks, his bad ‘stache, single pair of pants, and job as the tech equivalent of a burger flipper, despite his love of Applebee’s and the oeuvre of Billy Joel, he has—like Eliza’s coded Watson—an off-the-charts empathy quotient. Josh can read Eliza the way Yo Yo Ma reads Bach....

Entering the squat building at 1948 W. North, longtime home to the dental practice of Dr. Luis Casals, patients step into a relic from a bygone era of Wicker Park’s ever-shifting history. When Casals opened the office for business a half century ago, long before the arrival of nightclubs and artisan doughnut shops, the neighborhood was a largely working-class Hispanic enclave. The waiting room, visible from the sidewalk, is as pristinely preserved as the stuffed and mounted fish, ducks, and pheasants that the outdoorsman and taxidermy hobbyist displays on the wood-paneled walls....

Laith Saud, 38, was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1978, and immigrated to Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1979. Today he’s a visiting assistant professor of religion with a focus on Islamic studies at DePaul University, and the coauthor of An Introduction to Islam in the 21st Century. Here he describes how his hyphenated identity shifted his perception of America—and what he describes as its propaganda—during the first Gulf War, and what it’s been like to witness the rise of Islamophobia and xenophobia in the age of Donald Trump....

John Sturdy Linda Lutton of WBEZ will join Mick and Ben at the Hideout on August 5, along with fellow ace reporters Lauren FitzPatrick of the Sun-Times and Sarah Karp of Catalyst. With the start of a new school year just around the corner, Mick Dumke and I will be hosting three of the big guns of education reporting on our August 5 show at the Hideout. It will be hard to top last month’s extravaganza featuring Aldermen Danny Solis and Rick Munoz....

Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston in Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive In another one of those fortuitous moviegoing coincidences, I recently saw The Canterbury Tales (1972) in the Siskel Center’s Pier Paolo Pasolini retrospective just after checking out Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive for a second time. I found the pairing instructive—each one provided insights into the other I might not have experienced had I seen the films separately....

Anyone who regularly reads my writing in this paper probably knows about my growing admiration for Haley Fohr, a vocalist, composer, and improviser whose stunning creative growth over the last few years is matched by her rigor and ambition. Last year her long-running project Circuit des Yeux dropped a knockout album, Reaching for Indigo (Drag City), which deftly melds folk, psychedelia, and art songs with kaleidoscopic arrangements and heart-stopping singing. Fohr also has other practices and personas, including an electro-country alter ego, Jackie Lynn, and a gripping solo voice project....

New to Chicago’s hyper-niche scene of barcade robot punk bands are the Biscuits—Logan Arcade’s very own Misfits cover act, comprising four animatronic dogs named Glenn Dogzig, Jerry Bonely, Doyle Von Frankenbone, and . . . Robo. For a few months this past summer, Vondle ended up making the Biscuits his full-time job, taking leave from Ideo to work on the reanimation. Within a week of his hiring, he’d programmed a first Misfits song into the original animatronics as a proof of concept, but then he decided he needed to deconstruct and rewire the band—a much bigger task....

Brian McMahon, guitarist and cofounder of the Electric Eels, wrote the new memoir Jaguar Ride (HoZac) to tell the story of the confrontational and underappreciated Cleveland protopunk trailblazers. But it’s not till the book’s waning pages that he says something explicit and direct (inasmuch as he’ll allow himself to be) about how he understands the band’s short life: “A peculiar strain of non-selective toxic antibody that cannot exist outside the context of the diseased environment which sustains it....

Q: I’m in a pickle. All I want is to experience touch, intimacy, and sexual pleasure—but without freaking out. I grew up with a lot of negative messages from men due to developing early, as well as having some other physical/sexual trauma (no rape or abuse), but the combination has me seriously fucked up. Whenever I get close to physical intimacy with someone, I run away. I actually faked an emergency once and physically ran away because I knew sex was a possibility that night....

George Wendt has become accustomed to being greeted with good-natured shouts of “Norm!”—a reference, of course, to his beloved Cheers character. But lately the 68-year-old Chicago native has been bracing himself for a coming onslaught of insults. On September 9, a cabal of friends and collaborators will lovingly razz the veteran actor at his comedic alma mater, Second City. I Can’t Believe They Wendt There: The Roast of George Wendt will feature Bob Odenkirk, Keegan-Michael Key, Julia Sweeney, David Koechner, Betty Thomas, Jeff Tweedy, among others, as well as roast master Jason Sudeikis, who happens to be Wendt’s nephew....

Bryan Murray Jon Irabagon Not many saxophonists of the current generation impart curiosity, energy, and pure joy like Morton Grove native Jon Irabagon, a prolific and imaginative reedist who seems to overflow with music. Although he first made his reputation as a free-wheeling blower within the roguishly revisionist quartet Mostly Other People Do the Killing, in recent years he’s proven his mettle in all kinds of contexts. After winning the prestigious Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition in 2008, he cut a convincing mainstream postbop date in the company of heavies like Kenny Barron, Rufus Reid, and Victor Lewis—but he’s also worn noisy maximalism like a glove, collaborating with drummer Mike Pride and jaw-dropping electric guitarist Mick Barr; likewise, he’s become a valuable member of the Dave Douglas Quintet....

British playwright Penelope Skinner places three hapless women at the center of her trying 2015 play, now receiving its Chicago debut at Steep Theatre. Linda is a 55-year-old marketing executive in perpetual overdrive both at home and in the office. Alice, her dispirited 25-year-old daughter, barely gets out of bed as she struggles to overcome a decade-old social media humiliation. And Bridget, Linda’s headstrong 15-year-old daughter, is an aspiring actress bent on proving girls can play Hamlet....

This weekend Logan Hardware hosts a release party for last month’s Tompkins Square re­issue of Opus III, a 1972 private-press LP of solo acoustic guitar by Chicagoan John Hulburt. Hulburt had played second lead with garage rockers the Knaves, who scored a local hit with their only single, 1966’s jangly “Leave Me Alone,” but Opus III has more in common with John Fahey. Guitar wunderkind Ryley Walker found an original copy of the LP at Val’s Halla Records in Oak Park, then produced the reissue....

accessrx.com This wonder substance could make your life glorious! Or it could lead to hives, low blood pressure, or death. The terror builds slowly. First our TV screen fills with a heart-warming look at American guys and gals in all their glory. Maybe they’re nuzzling on the patio. Or maybe they’re grilling steaks, hiking a trail, or coursing like tarpon through the spangled breakers of a remote Pacific bay. Whatever they’re up to, the message is clear: these are terrific people who lead terrific lives because they refuse to settle for less....

Shaw’s Oysterfest is an annual event held near the long-time River North crab house of the same name, and besides local oyster shuckers (like, well, Shaw’s), they bring in oyster purveyors of various types from all over the country . . . or, in this case, the country directly to our north. I got to talk to two of the visiting suppliers before the festival began last Friday; today it’s Daniel Notkin, who co-owns Montreal’s Notkin’s Bar à Huîtres (oyster bar) near the Place d’Armes as well as the seafood importer the Old Port Fishing Company....

The Planned Parenthood of Illinois bake sale was supposed to start selling cookies Monday. But by late last week, the bake sale had already made more than $37,000 and sold out of cookie boxes, days before the sale was officially supposed to start. Amanda Shepard, a pastry chef at Lula Cafe, says that when Behlke came calling there was no question as to whether Lula would participate. The plan was to sell cookie boxes over the course of the next month, starting Monday, and have cookie boxes available for pickup the weekend of March 11....

Allison Shelley/Getty Images Former Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens John Paul Stevens, the retired Republican Supreme Court Justice who’s remembered as a liberal because the Court turned so conservative while he was on it, has written a book proposing changes to the U.S. Constitution. One would eliminate political gerrymandering, which Stevens, like so many others, regards as a bad thing. He wants the Constitution to demand “compact” districts “composed of contiguous territory”; exceptions could not be made if the reason for them were “enhancing or preserving the political power of the party in control of the state government....

One way to think of Baffo, the fine-dining restaurant on the ground floor of Eataly, is that it’s Babbo Lite. Babbo, apart from being the name of the flagship restaurant in Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich’s empire, means “daddy” in Italian. Baffo is sort of a condensed version of Babbo, with some dozen dishes imported directly from the New York menu and seven more that look awfully familiar. In Italian, baffo is a term for mustache, so another way to think of the restaurant is “Daddy’s Mustache....