Seventeen famous names appear on a digital blackboard hung behind a long table. You may try to find the unifying principle among them while you wait for the start of BigMouth, running briefly at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. But I’m here to tell you it won’t be easy. The people on the list don’t come from a single time, place, gender, religion, or social stratum. One of them isn’t even real, strictly speaking....

Craig Silverman, media editor of Buzzfeed, was showing a picture of an ABC News article recently to a crowd at the University of Chicago’s International House Assembly Hall. The headline read “Donald Trump Protester Speaks Out: ‘I Was Paid $3,500 To Protest Trump’s Rally.'” It looked official enough. That is, until the audience began to notice things like the ABC logo font in Arial, the odd kerning, the fact that paid protesting really isn’t a thing, and finally, the author’s name—”Jimmy Rustling,” a nod to the popular 4chan meme, “That Really Rustled My Jimmies....

Local indie-garage linchpins Shannon Candy, who runs DIY label Bernice Records and Tapes and plays guitar in Strawberry Jacuzzi, and Jen Dot, whose virtual zine Disappearing Media and bubblegum punks Swimsuit Addition are Gossip Wolf faves, are totally tired of bros—and they don’t care who knows! According to Candy and Dot, “Being a bro has nothing to do with your gender or clothing—it’s about behavior. They are a fucking drag.” This wolf couldn’t agree more!...

Longtime former artistic director Martha Lavey died today, after a stroke suffered earlier this month. Steppenwolf Theatre announced the news via press release. Lavey had suffered a previous, more serious stroke in 2015, shortly after she’d left her job at Steppenwolf, where she’d been artistic director for 20 years. She was replaced by current artistic director Anna Shapiro. Here’s the Steppenwolf statement: As faithful friends, audience members, donors, staff, artists, mentees and members of the Steppenwolf community, we were all indelibly impacted by Martha’s passion, commitment, vision and unmatched intellect....

Tal Rosenberg,Reader digital content editor Mark Snow The guy who composed the X-Files theme. He’s kind of a genius—his score for the show is like Angelo Badalamenti with a broader palette, which probably goes a long way toward explaining why The X-Files gets compared to Twin Peaks so much. Snow’s other credits include Starsky & Hutch, T.J. Hooker, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, and three recent Alain Resnais films (Private Fears in Public Places, Wild Grass, and You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet!...

Nick Hamm’s historical fantasy The Journey is based on a real-life incident that took place near the end of the decades-long civil conflict between Catholic nationalists and Protestant unionists in Northern Ireland. In October 2006 the British and Irish governments, along with the major political parties in Northern Ireland, convened in Saint Andrews, Scotland, to hammer out a power-sharing arrangement between the Democratic Unionist Party, led by the fire-breathing Protestant minister Ian Paisley, and Sinn Féin, the left-leaning Irish republican party....

For years I’ve been low-key obsessed with the Bridges’ 2008 album Limits of the Sky (Verve Forecast), what with its infectious melodies, close harmonies, and the irresistible, sweetly hoarse vocals of Brittany Painter. Bridges bassist Issaca Byrd has since started this Nashville-based project with producer Micah Tawlks, and though I miss her old folk-rock roots, Myzica retain some of those virtues. Their 2016 full-length debut, Love & Desire (Peptalk/Tone Tree), is even less apologetic than the Bridges were about embracing the cheesy hook: “We Belong Together” could just about be an Abba track, complete with pattering synths, a sweeping chorus, and an earnest break on which Byrd repeats in multitracked ecstasy, “We belong together / Baby we belong together....

The Reader’s archive is vast and varied, going back to 1971. Every week in Archive Dive, we’ll dig through and bring up some finds. Sure, your aunt may say she made that Thanksgiving pumpkin pie all on her own, but how much does she know about the people who picked and packed the pumpkins before the can of pie filling entered her kitchen? In the 2006 Reader article “Hecho en Illinois,” Linda Lutton and Catrin Einhorn explored Morton, Illinois, which at the time produced as much as 90 percent of all canned pumpkin consumed in the United States....

To call comedian Candy Lawrence a stand-up would be a misnomer. She’s more like a run-and-jump-and-dance-up. In a bit about her loud upstairs neighbors, she viciously stomps across the stage; when clueing in the audience on how she spells her middle name (not Jasmine, JAZZMAN!), she scats and dances with unparalleled energy; and at any given moment she might roll across the stage, skillfully avoiding getting tangled in the mike cord....

Since setting up shop on the corner of Kedzie and Diversey more than a year ago Bric-a-Brac Records has become an informal base for the local DIY garage and punk scenes. In the past handful of months the store has thrown some eye-catching in-stores featuring talented locals (Son of a Gun, Jimmy Whispers) and scene favorites from around the country (Juan Wauters, Mean Jeans). On Sunday Bric-a-Brac is throwing yet another show with Portland’s Guantanamo Baywatch—they’ll be joined by local groups the Wet, American Breakfast, and Best of Chicago winners the Lemons, who are returning from a West Coast trek....

I headed to Leelanau County in northern Michigan last week for R&R, armed with a list of cideries, wineries, farmers’ markets, ice cream stands, and restaurants to check out. That’s the little peninsula on the state’s greater lower peninsula that sticks out between Lake Michigan and Grand Traverse Bay like a pinky finger on a wine stem. Blessed with a glorious maritime climate (in summer, anyway), it has a serious viticulture (relative to the rest of the midwest) and a comparably respectable food scene....

The other day I noticed a sticker on my copy of In Between (Bar-None), the recent sixth album by the Feelies, noting the New Jersey band’s 40th anniversary. At most installments of the Pitchfork Music Festival, that would make them unchallenged as the oldest performers, even though the combo took a 17-year hiatus that ended in 2008—but this year their set was momentarily delayed by an encore from an even older artist, George Clinton, whose raggedly celebratory set preceded theirs....

Perhaps when the retro gaze of pop-music culture shifts to aughties indie rock, some future archivists will give Inspector Owl a little more attention than they’ve received in their time. The five-piece group hail from the western suburb of Geneva, and over their 15 year together their activity has become more sporadic over time; they’ve released one single every year for the past three, but it’s clear the band’s members have had other priorities....

Raoul Peck’s galvanizing documentary I Am Not Your Negro reacquaints viewers with one of the most powerful voices of the civil rights era, the great novelist, playwright, and essayist James Baldwin. His 1963 book The Fire Next Time, a best seller in the U.S., squarely confronted white Americans with the moral cost of their apartheid government and for several years made him a prominent public figure. As Peck’s archival clips illustrate, Baldwin was a captivating speaker, his bold language and dramatic cadences drawn right from the pulpit....

Much as I admire Chicago-based filmmaker Joe Swanberg (Hannah Takes the Stairs, Drinking Buddies) for his dedicated work ethic (he’s directed 16 features and acted in dozens of others over the past decade), his movies drive me up the wall. His loose, improvised dialogue sounds like the stuff of acting workshops, and his slim narratives—which tend to focus on millennials hanging out—often strike me as aimless. I can’t deny his sure hand with actors; everyone onscreen seems so comfortable one might easily take for granted that Swanberg directed them....

A junkyard. Row upon row of car carcasses spread across acres of land. That’s Avery’s Auto Salvage, the setting of the Netflix documentary miniseries Making a Murderer. But it’s more than just a place—it’s a visual symbol for the state of a town and its people. Freed, Avery hopes to lead a happy, uneventful life. But first he wants to settle the score with those who wronged him. He becomes a poster boy for the Wisconsin Innocence Project and sues the Manitowoc County police department to compensate him for his 18 lost years....

Cantina de la Granja/Facebook Chef Diana Davida-Boldin at a Cantina de la Granja preview event It’s fall and there are things to do! Here are several of them! First up, Tuesday night you can taste a rooftop preview of Andersonville’s Cantina de la Granja (slated to open next year), benefit the Gary Comer Youth Center—and maybe influence the direction of the restaurant’s menu. Chef Diana Davila-Boldin will show some of what she plans for the “Modern Mexican” concept, which will include a substantial rooftop garden as well as a farm-to-table approach to Mexican food using local farmers....

Q I’m a boring person by your column’s standards in that I’ve always identified as a straight male into typical relationships. I’ve realized, after multiple long-term relationships that were unsatisfying, that monogamy isn’t for me. I would like to have a main, fulfilling, and committed relationship without limiting myself sexually or emotionally. I’ve struggled to remain faithful in the past and don’t want to cheat on anyone. I just want the rules to fit me so that I don’t have to be considered a cheater....

Pianist Håvard Wiik, a Norwegian native who lives in Berlin, is best known for his key role in the Scandinavian free-bop quintet Atomic, for which he writes much of the material. In that context he’s exhibited a strong interest in 20th-century classical music (you can’t miss his love for Morton Feldman), but his roots are in jazz, and he leans hard on that tradition on last year’s This Is Not a Waltz (Moserobie), his first album in more than a decade with his long-running trio, which includes bassist Ole Morten Vågan and drummer Håkon Mjåset Johansen....

In the mid-2000s, the banks that serve as the pillars of the U.S. financial system defrauded the American people, caused the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression, and essentially got away with it. Only one executive went to jail for a calculated and widespread corruption that tainted every echelon of the U.S.’s top-tier financial institutions, from JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs to the since- collapsed Bear Stearns, AIG, and Lehman Brothers....