When soul singer Jamila Woods sat down to write the treatment for her latest music video, she says she couldn’t shake the image of braids rising from her head and floating in the air. With that first potent visual as a seed, she worked with Chicago production company VAM and director Sam Bailey (VAM’s digital art director) to create the video for “Holy.” The song appears on her 2016 debut album, Heavn, which was just rereleased in digital and physical formats by Jagjaguwar and Closed Sessions....

Marvel and a Wonder (Akashic) is not the first novel I’ve read that is either directly or indirectly about American masculinity in crisis, nor will it be the last, but it’s the only one I’ve genuinely enjoyed. It’s a notable accomplishment: a melancholy, symbol-laden meditation on the dying American heartland that I stayed up into the small hours to finish. There’s also racism. No one knows who Quentin’s father was, but they know he wasn’t white....

This Long Island quartet threw down a gauntlet with their 2013 debut EP Freaks: 14 filler-free minutes of wickedly efficient prog metal. But on their debut self-released full-length, Chromaparagon, Moon Tooth stretch out and settle in, proving that they can comfortably sustain their inventiveness over a long span. There’s a little bit of Converge and the Melvins in the heaviest moments—plus a suggestion of a vestigial bluesiness that’s all but vanished from slicker and noodlier outfits—and for the most part the 12 diverse tracks are so full of left-field turns that it can get a little bit exhausting....

On November 15, Covenant House Illinois (CHIL) hosted its second annual Sleep Out at St. James Cathedral. Members of the community, celebrities, business leaders, and young professionals came together to raise funds and awareness for Chicago’s homeless, trafficked, and at-risk youth by sleeping outside. “Sleepers” set personal fund-raising goals ranging from $1,500 to $5,000 that were met with the help of friends, family, and colleagues. Additionally, the sleepers shared a meal and participated in activities with CHIL staff, youth, and volunteers....

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago. Isa Giallorenzo Blogger Jessie of minipennyblog.com Isa Giallorenzo Blogger Julia Dearing of colormeclassy.com Isa Giallorenzo Debbie Jagel, owner of Ootra Boutique and co-chair of the event Isa Giallorenzo Paula and Angela Morano (aka The Hat Girl), wearing Angela’s millinery Isa Giallorenzo Paula and milliner Angela Morano Isa Giallorenzo Photographer Justin Barbin...

On Saturday, July 29, Crescendo Literary presented the second annual Chicago Poetry Block Party at the National Museum of Mexican Art. Founded by prolific Chicago-based poets Eve L. Ewing and Nate Marshall, Crescendo is an arts and educational organization devoted to the principle that artists enrich their communities and vice versa—and the block party doubles as an incubator for writers who want to combine their creative work with community organizing....

Barton Fink Inside Llewyn Davis, the new film from Joel and Ethan Coen, has incited the same arguments that arise whenever a new Coen brothers film is released. Some critics consider the Coen brothers and their films mean spirited and misanthropic because they supposedly mock, punish, and judge their characters and, by proxy, the viewers. I find an inherent contradiction in such an argument—namely, it presupposes that movie characters are real people and are therefore exempt from “unfair” depictions....

Q: I’m a reader in Kansas with two teenage daughters, 16 and 18. My girls recently met a boy where they work and both took an interest in him. The 18-year-old was devastated that he was more interested in her younger sister. I spoke to the 16-year-old about it, which is when I found out this boy is going to be a sophomore in college. The fact that he’s interested in a 16-year-old is a red flag....

Drive Like Jehu drummer Mark Trombino has had a long and successful career as a producer and engineer since that San Diego band split up in 1995—among his many accomplishments, he’s recorded platinum-­selling albums by the likes of Blink-182 and Jimmy Eat World. But in summer 2013, he opened a shop called Donut Friend in Los Angeles, which sells specialty doughnuts named punningly after bands: Jets to Basil, Yo La Mango, Stiff Little Butterfingers, X-Ray Speculoos....

“Have you ever had sake?” a server asked as I scanned the beverage menu. It was an early evening, early in the week at Ani, a new, modest Japanese restaurant from Ty and Troy Fujimara, the siblings who own Wicker Park’s great sushi restaurant Arami (and Small Bar). It’s that California-grown grain, also served at Arami, that elevates this sushi, and other dishes at Ani, beyond the standard neighborhood chop-shop product....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Friday, April 21, 2017. Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts withdraws his nomination from the Trump administration Chicago Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts, who was nominated by President Donald Trump to be deputy commerce secretary, has withdrawn his nomination from consideration for the job. Ricketts “could not unravel the overlapping family holdings that obviously include the Cubs” even though he was willing to, a source told the Sun-Times....

At a press conference Monday, Chance the Rapper announced his donation of $1 million to Chicago Public Schools, but despite the widespread coverage of the story since, most reporting has missed the opportunity to point out how heavily Chance had invested in education even before his meeting with Governor Rauner. The New York Times mentioned his “philanthropic and civic engagement,” focusing on election-cycle activities such as the voter-registration drive at Magnificent Coloring Day and the early-voting event Parade to the Polls....

Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. Hey, did you read: Gloria Steinem on the need for equal pay—and the time she asked for it and an editor sent her a Gucci purse instead? —Julia Thiel How Netflix, responsible for up to 37 percent of Internet traffic, is trying manipulate their TV quality to unclog the internet? —Sue Kwong That DJ Khaled got lost at sea on a Jet Ski?...

Last year the folks at Finders Keepers—one of the UK’s most fervent proponents of musical arcana of all stripes—reissued an obscurity called Furia by a British group called the Fates. At the time I’d never heard of them, but I was intrigued when I found out that the band’s leader, Una Baines, had played in the brilliant and criminally unknown Manchester band Blue Orchids. After picking up the record I further learned that keyboardist Baines was an original member of the Fall, leaving the band around the same time as guitarist Martin Bramah, in 1978....

Wilder Maker is a sophisticated New York quintet helmed by a crew of indie-rock veterans with broad interests, including songwriter and front man Gabriel Birnbaum, who’s previously played with the Ethiopian-inspired Debo Band. Though I’m not sure if his earlier affiliation was inspired by a love of Paul Simon’s Graceland, most of the songs on Wilder Maker’s brand-new album, Zion (Northern Spy), feature a vocal delivery that’s reminiscent of Simon’s clipped, conversational style on that record—if not explicitly referencing its mixture of South African and New Orleans pop....

It premiered back in September, but I finally got around to watching an episode of Black-ish on ABC this week. Good job, all parties involved. Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross are Dre and Rainbow, parents of four attempting to carve out a cultural identity for their children in white suburbia, a thing that’s perhaps easier said than done when your six-year-old twins are named after an incredibly white John Cougar Mellencamp song....

The Nashville quintet Promised Land Sound has taken a big leap on its recently released second album For Use & Delight (Paradise of Bachelors), keeping one foot planted in vintage country-rock and placing another in a kind of languid, expansive psychedelia more concerned with getting lost than getting blasted. Many of the songs are lamentations, chidings, and pleadings in response to rejection or, worse, indifference. The exquisite “She Takes Me There” seems like a celebration of the emotional highs of the narrator, but the song is actually a bittersweet expression of solitude....

“Ruth Gruber: Photojournalist” is a slightly misleading title for an exhibit opening this weekend at the Illinois Holocaust Museum. Gruber, who turned 102 last September, worked for more than half a century as a photographer, and even longer as a writer—but she considered her articles and photos merely tools for a larger project. “Ruth’s photo helped influence people,” says Patti Kenner, a friend of Gruber’s who produced Ahead of Time, a documentary about her life being shown Sunday at the IHM....

Flanagan’s Wake The Improv Institute’s original 1994 production of Jack Bronis’s interactive, mostly improvised Irish wake ran for more than a decade. Now Chicago Theater Works disinters these stereotype-laden, intermittently amusing 90 or so minutes, and even brings back Bronis to direct. The results are decidedly musty (think drunk Irishmen jokes), and the challenging acoustics and overlapping, brogue-heavy dialogue make comprehension a regular chore. But the seven improvisers graciously accommodate some delightfully dopey audience participation, giving the evening a refreshingly communal feel....

When I was a wee lad in the ninth grade—in 1981, I think—I borrowed a compilation of Merseybeat tracks from my local library in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. If memory serves, that record introduced me to loads of one-hit wonders riding the coattails of the Beatles—Gerry & the Pacemakers, the Searchers, the Swinging Blue Jeans, Manfred Mann—and served as my education on early British rock for many years to come. Sure, I knew the Who, the Kinks, and the Rolling Stones, but I didn’t look much further until years later....