You might be wondering why, in a year when so many high-profile bars have arrived—from Three Dots and a Dash in River North to the Dawson in River West, from Punch House in Pilsen to, oh, half of Logan Square—we chose to devote nearly half of our Bar Issue to the oral history of a centenarian dive in Uptown. To which we’d reply: Seriously? The Green Mill, as we all know, is as fashionable as ever—partly because of its pockmarked pedigree, partly because of its dodgy-but-gentrifying environs, and largely because so many new bars (we’re talking about you, Sportman’s Club) take their cues from joints like the one Dave Jemilo resuscitated 30 years ago....

This review contains spoilers. The convict and the lawyer are quite similar. Shigemori believes so deeply in the law that he’s sacrificed his life for it—early in the film Kore-eda reveals that the attorney’s wife divorced him and that his neglected 14-year-old daughter is becoming a delinquent. Shigemori realizes that he’s failed as a family man but makes little attempt to change his personal life; he’s too committed to the cause of justice....

Courtesy of Kit Kit This week’s edition of Gossip Wolf includes some news about Kit, the Chicago-via-Cincinnati rapper behind last year’s moody, subterranean New Wavey mixtape. As Gossip Wolf mentions, the MC recently linked up with west-coast producer Dixie Hype and made a tune called “I Bop,” an homage to the posi, ebullient bop scene born on Chicago’s west side. Given the subject at hand, it kind of sounds like Dixie Hype took the high-pitched, melodic synths from a number made for bopping and slowed them down to help create the hazy, leaned-out melody that’s very much in Kit’s wheelhouse; to fit the spirit of the song, Kit uses a bit of Auto-Tune on his vocals and sings about, well, bopping....

Towards the end of his brand new EP, TreeSwag, New Deal Crew rapper Chris Crack ad-libs, “You know when I’m on a Tree beat, man, I’m on good bullshit.” Local “soul trap” originator Tree produced TreeSwag (hence its title), so there’s a reason Crack makes an impromptu comment about Tree’s intoxicating and lean instrumentals. And even though Crack is basically saying the entire EP is, well, “good bullshit” because he’s working with Tree, he approaches every song with the same mix of genuine enthusiasm and earnestness he displays in the ad-lib on “Off Da Pot....

As a purveyor of printed matter, I’m constantly amazed at the variety and quality of comics being produced today. Chicago alone is home to many talented comics artists; on top of that, our city’s played an important role in the history of the form, particularly in the development of indie comics. In keeping with that tradition, some of the submissions featured here go beyond conventional ideas of comics. Celina Hernandez submitted a drawing of a naked woman with notes about herself....

Bryant Howe used to design amplifier heads for Emperor Custom Cabinets, and now he tells Gossip Wolf that he’s starting a new company, Studious Amplifiers, in his Humboldt Park apartment. He’s already got happy customers—endorsing artists include Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Beach Fossils’ Dustin Payseur, and Walkmen members Hamilton Leithauser and Paul Maroon. Howe says his amps—available in a variety of wattages, configurations, and finishes—use “high-end, vintage-styled components . . . manufactured here in Chicago using the same methods that they have since the 50s....

Q: I’m confused about my sexuality. For many years, I thought I preferred heteroromantic asexual relationships. Exposure to select reading material—thanks to my gender-studies classes—has me convinced I’m an asexual T-type (i.e., “top,” but I prefer not to use such connotative terms) female who is attracted to slight and feminine men. I do not want to take off my clothes or engage in oral, anal, digital, or vaginal sex. Instead, I want to design sexual situations that comely young gentlemen will consensually enter: restraints, CBT, whippings, play piercings, fisting....

Midwestern Cuisine Have we left out your favorite midwestern delicacy? Tweet at us using the hashtag #midwesternfood. Beer Nuts The Big Baby(double cheeseburger) Chicago-style hot dog Chicken Vesuvio Corn dogs Deep-dish pizza Depression dog Flaming saganaki The Freddy(Italian sausage patty, long roll, red sauce, green pepper, mozzarella) Fried turtle Gyro cone Harold’s chicken The horseshoe(open-face burger, fries, and cheese sauce) Italian beef Jeppson’s Malort The jibarito The Jim Shoe, aka Gym Shoe(roast beef, corned beef, and gyros meat, chopped iceberg, tomato, “GUY-ro sauce,” and often mayonnaise or yellow mustard on sub roll)...

One of Kristin Miaso’s designs for Lions, Tigers and Beers. No origami artists were harmed in the making of this poster. I wrote about Lions, Tigers and Beers last year, when the event raised $10,000 for the Wildcat Sanctuary in Sandstone, Minnesota, and generally I try not to repeat myself in this column. But I’m a cat person—ask anybody. Plus Kate Gallagher and her husband, Tom Lee, who run Northdown together, let me stop by this past weekend to sample a couple of the rarest beers on the Lions, Tigers and Beers tap list—which runs more than 50 deep....

Rapper Open Mike Eagle lives in Los Angeles now, but he grew up in Hyde Park and has family all over the south side. One of his aunts and several first cousins lived in the Robert Taylor Homes, which were demolished over the course of nine years beginning in 1998. Eagle’s most recent album, last September’s Brick Body Kids Still Daydream, is a touching, imaginative tribute to that housing project—after watching an hour-long PBS documentary about the Robert Taylor Homes called Crisis on Federal Street on a flight, he drew on archived government reports, YouTube videos, and his own memories to capture the feeling and meaning of life in Chicago’s public-housing high-rises....

Alto saxophonist Nick Mazzarella is one of the city’s most focused improvisers, a fervent student of jazz history and a staunch adherent of avant-garde tradition. He’s not a conceptualist. He likes form, function, and resolution, so at times he appears conventional within the context of Chicago’s shape-shifting jazz and improv scene. But with the release of Triangulum (Clean Feed) by his group Meridian Trio—a record beautifully recorded by Dave Zuchowski at the Whistler in January 2016—Mazzarella reasserts his versatility and presents a quiet brand of searching quite distinct from his past forays into the free jazz of Ornette Coleman and the sound sheets of John Coltrane....

Back in 2008, when poets Shanny Jean Maney and Robbie Q. Telfer were spitballing about the creation of a live-lit show, they turned to an expansive source of inspiration: the encyclopedia. Starting with the topic “bears,” they assigned subtopics to writers, comedians, and musicians to build a live encyclopedia entry. After five years in Chicago, the Encyclopedia Show is down to its final two entries before the big book closes for good....

In the wake of a tumultuous presidential election, this year’s One-Minute Play Festival at the Den Theatre puts politics at center stage. In its seventh year, the festival—this edition is titled “America Is . . . “—features dozens of minute-long performances that comment on the state of both the country and the city of Chicago under the Trump administration. The One-Minute Play Festival travels all across the United States and makes an effort to include and highlight diverse perspectives....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, February 8, 2017. State attorney general Lisa Madigan presses Rauner on Trump’s immigration policies Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan is putting pressure on Governor Bruce Rauner to denounce President Donald Trump’s controversial immigration policies. In an open letter to Rauner, Madigan encouraged him to “use your authority as the governor of one of the most diverse states in the nation to protect all of the residents of Illinois—along with our employers and educational institutions—from the harm caused by these executive actions....

Sway Bay Area shoegaze act Whirr have a new full-length, Sway, coming out at the end of the summer on Graveface Records, and this week they released a preview track from it called “Mumble”—it’s today’s 12 O’Clock Track. Whirr have always been masters at creating sweeping, glacial, dream-rock epics, but this new song sees them taking on their signature style with a bit more urgency. The beat pulses and pushes rather than floats, and an overdriven bass line drives the whole song....

Earth 2: Special Low-Frequency Version On Thursday night pioneering drone act Earth will be playing at the Empty Bottle. The band, whose original lifespan lasted from 1989 to 1997, got back together about ten years ago and have since been exploring mellow, acoustic, pretty, psych-folk experiments—and while recent Earth material is great, it doesn’t quite do it for me like their early work. When the band, led by Dylan Carlson, started out, they focused on super-slow-motion sludge-metal riffage, sounding almost like Black Sabbath slowed down beyond any comprehension....

David Banks/Getty Images Against the White Sox last week, Samardzija went nine innings, gave up no earned runs, got the Cubs’ only hit through the first eight innings, and scored their only run. For which he got a no decision. Cubs fans are sure to see something special at Wrigley Field this afternoon (weather permitting). Jeff Samardzija, the north-siders’ best pitcher, will either win for the first time since August, or his teammates will help him stretch his winless streak to 15 games....

One night at the end of July, Geek Bar’s management sounded a clarion call for bailout money from their patrons. Rob Stein, the Wicker Park gastropub’s so-called “Galactic Overlord,” announced to the crowd that had gathered for geek trivia night, “We need some help to make sure Geek Bar stays in this neighborhood and that we can continue to hang out with all of you.” The July fund-raiser wasn’t the first time the bar’s management had asked the public to help foot their bills....

I’ve been struggling for months to think of something to say about Capital Cities’ “Safe and Sound.” It’s been on the Hot 100 for 36 weeks now—peaking a while back at number eight and taking its time sliding back down. Last week it was down to number 45, this week it’s back up to 28—and during that entire time I haven’t come up with enough to say about the song to fill an entire blog post....

Nick Marzullo climbs the stairway of his Humboldt Park apartment into a cramped attic virtually wallpapered in stickers. Tiny filing cabinets are stuffed with markers and crayons. But this is no playroom for Marzullo’s 11-month-old—it’s business. The ministudio is the headquarters of Pawn Works Sticker Club, an organization that produces artists’ sticker designs and distributes them through vending machines to give the artists a promotional boost. Marzullo became interested in stickers at an early age, collecting Disney decals at the age of three....