Well, that was fast. What happened to snatch the bus from the jaws of death? “Over the last couple of days we’ve had some discussions in which we’ve identified some potential new avenues of support in the community, which could consist of financial support or something to help boost ridership,” Steele said. “So instead of just shutting it down, we felt the best thing to do was to continue service in the near future....

I can’t say that Earth to Echo fails totally as children’s entertainment; the grade-schoolers at the preview screening I attended seemed to enjoy it just fine. Yet I’ve seen grade-schoolers transfixed by TV commercials as well, and no responsible parent (or so I hope) would show a child advertisements for 90 minutes straight. Echo often feels like a feature-length smartphone commercial; when it doesn’t, it comes off as an inept knockoff of Steven Spielberg’s E....

The neighborhoods that make up Chicago’s south side—Auburn Gresham, Bronzeville, Englewood, Hyde Park, Kenwood, South Shore, Woodlawn, Washington Park, and so forth—are layered and complex. In this feature, I wanted to exhibit these communities individually in the course of providing a collective portrayal of the south side. However, in browsing the Sun-Times archive, I noticed that location of many of the photographs was recorded simply as “the south side,” with no indication of the specific community depicted....

After reading Aimee Levitt’s Reader cover story on rape at the University of Chicago, I sent her a note to say how much I admired it. What followed was an exchange of e-mails that exposed differences of perspective rooted in age and sex. I wondered if Aimee was beginning to think I actually didn’t like her story much at all.
I saw this device at work a second time this week, in an essay in the Tribune....

Unlike say, barbecue joints, the growing abundance of new ramen spots around town is a seemingly unstoppable restaurant trend I’ve started to get behind. Gone are the days when the conventional wisdom held that Santouka in Arlington Heights’s Mitsuwa Marketplace food court was the only acceptable bowl in the region, if not the midwest. With some notable exceptions it seems independent operators and Japanese chains alike have insinuated themselves in the city, mastered the delicate art of the gooey hanjuku egg, the springy tensile noodle, and above all nailed the broth, whether it’s an austere shio, a glutamically intense paitan, or a cloudy tonkotsu, creamy with pork fat....

Evanston Public Library’s controversial “cranky librarian,” Lesley Williams, announced today that she is resigning from her job as head of adult services, and will leave the library after more than 20 years of service. “I am in a position to not need to look for a new job immediately, so I am continuing my work advocating for a meaningful equity audit (or “assessment” if you prefer) of library services, as well as continuing to volunteer with Open Communities, Jewish Voice for Peace and other progressive nonprofits,” was how she put it, in an e-mail....

Chance the Rapper is on top of the bill for this year’s Lollapalooza, which announced its lineup at 6 AM. It’s the latest part of the victory lap for the Chicago music hero, after-school educator, and Chicago Public Schools advocate since he won three Grammys for his Coloring Book mixtape last month. Few things say cultural domination like headlining the largest music festival in your own hometown. Not that Chance has much competition....

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago. “Laidback, on chill mode. Not too flashy, but eye-catching,” says Marvell Wesley of his style, inspired by Jay-Z, Common, and “the old” Kanye West—”Through-the-fire Kanye West,” he clarifies. “I try to be noticeable when I dress—different but always comfortable.” Since he works out “every day, all day,” athletic wear is a staple in his wardrobe; still, Wesley puts a lot of attention into detail, such as matching his green Nspired T-shirt with the Lacoste alligator logo on his windbreaker....

Though the loss of many beloved baby-boomer musicians in recent years has made this decade seem cruel, it’s also been a time of resurrection for several bands and projects of members of that same generation. For fans of these groups, that’s sometimes meant a crazy-amazing chance to catch performances by figures they never dreamed they’d actually get to see. Case in point: Michael Nesmith. This summer, Nesmith and his old Monkees cohort Micky Dolenz went on the road, where they treated audiences to a set list packed with deep album cuts and even a load of psychedelic songs off the soundtrack of Head—the satirical 1968 film the Monkees starred in after the cancellation of their now-classic television show....

Saxophonist Dave Rempis is one of Chicago’s fieriest, most intense improvisers, whether he’s forging connections with new collaborators or strengthening his intuitive bonds with old ones. With his seemingly boundless energy, he’s one of the loudest horn men I’ve ever heard, but he’s also capable of great sensitivity, not only playing with exquisite delicacy but also listening carefully and responding sensitively to his cohorts. Since February he’s spent much of 2017 on the road, traveling the midwest, west coast, and deep south to hone his solo practice with a project he calls Lattice—he plans to release a solo album culled from tour recordings this fall on his own Aerophonic label....

Michael Gebert Erling Wu-Bower at Nico Osteria Last week, when Erling Wu-Bower was listed as a James Beard Foundation Award semifinalist for Best Chef, Great Lakes for his work at Nico Osteria, some people expressed surprise that they would shortlist the chef of a restaurant (even a Paul Kahan one) that’s been open less than three months. But remember, Wu-Bower is the guy who spent ten years becoming an overnight success, as the saying goes, at Kahan’s One Off Hospitality group....

The chants and slogans from the crowd of what appeared to be more than 100 white protesters who gathered outside Branch Community Church in northwest-side Jefferson Park February 9 to oppose a proposed affordable housing development felt eerily reminiscent of the 1960s. But opponents weren’t having it. Nor is this the first time one of Full Circle’s developments has been met with vehement neighborhood opposition by northwest-side residents who seem to conceive of affordable housing as something meant for people unlike themselves....

Julia Thiel The limes are purely decorative. I’ve been reading a lot about Campari drinks lately, which is a little odd since I don’t really enjoy the flavor of Campari. But I recently tried it in a ginger liqueur cocktail and enjoyed it, plus I have a big bottle of it at home (I bought it to make punch and then ended up going with a different recipe than I’d planned on)....

My favorite new commercial release out now, the dialogue-free claymation Shaun the Sheep Movie, is a loving tribute to the work of Buster Keaton, trading in meticulously staged sight gags and deadpan reaction shots. The soundtrack is largely subservient to the images—writer-directors Mark Burton and Richard Starzak use noises merely to punctuate the visual humor. This strategy makes for a nice change of pace from all the dumb one-liners that routinely clog up children’s animations; more importantly, it provides a welcome reminder that movies don’t need words....

QI’m a straight female who was a dominatrix for a while—and out of all the jobs I’ve had, I loved it the most. Working as a secretary—one with a master’s in writing—wasn’t that hard to beat, I guess. But professional dommes aren’t immune to workplace romances, and I fell in love with a client. Long story short, we are still together after a year and a half, after I closed my practice and sold (most of) my toys because he didn’t want to be with a woman who was still practicing this kind of physical intimacy with others....

Mike Sula Mariano’s oyster bar lunch special (for two) I’m in danger of becoming a champion of mega grocery chain Mariano’s, if only for the quality of the prepared food stalls in the new Ravenswood store. I’ve already professed my strong like for the barbecue, a damn sight better than the majority of new independent restaurants purporting to smoke meat. I certainly didn’t expect to vouch for the raw bar, especially after an early unfortunate encounter with a single spermy bivalve....

In case the name “Couch Slut” is somehow too nuanced to convey to you just how grim and confrontational this Brooklyn noise-rock foursome can be, their sophomore full-length, Contempt (Gilead Media), sounds like getting your fingers slammed in the hatch of a tank or your bare toes gnarled under a bundle of bricks dropped from three stories up. That help? Right from the opening track, “Funeral Dyke,” the record doesn’t care a whit for subtlety....

Rich Hein/Sun-Times Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House in Plano: The details are crucial. As Mies van der Rohe said, “God is in the details.” But is God in every last petty detail? As Mies might not have said, but just about everybody else has at one time or another, “Picky, picky.” (What if it is!) Give me a break! That’s a wonderful lyric. The instant we hear it we know what Hart meant by unphotographable....

Throughout his career omnivorous trumpeter and composer Dave Douglas has deployed his innate curiosity as a calling card. While he’s had certain bedrock bands, like the excellent quintet he brings to town this week, he also pours his energy into a steady profusion of disparate projects. His output from 2016—all of it on his own Greenleaf imprint—was remarkable in this regard. In April he dropped Dark Territory, the cohesive second album by his liquid quartet High Risk, on which the propulsive grooves of drummer Mark Guiliana and muscular electric bass of Jonathan Maron support both the leader’s lyric, high-energy blowing and the fluid electronic ambience and fractal patterns of dance-music producer Shigeto....

During the weekly For Women Only, Duh rides, female cyclists can enjoy biking and hanging out without having to deal with sexism or street harassment. When Lynda Lopez, a daily bike commuter and youth outreach worker for the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, came across an article about the event last December, she applauded the concept. But she also noticed that almost all of the women in the photos that ran with the story appeared to be white....