Mike Sula Horchata, El Habanero Given the ubiquity of horchata, the cooling, milky, rice-based agua fresca that has no peer when it comes to extinguishing capsaicin-ignited fires, you’d think that you’d see more variation from the frequently chalky, oversweetened concentrates that circulate through JetSprays in taquerias all over the city. There are plenty of ways to make it—with Spanish tiger nuts or cantaloupe seeds, ground almonds or sesame—but I’d settle for one made from scratch....

Coates understands much of the backlash embodied by Trump and his white nationalists allies as a direct and logical response to a black presidency—and one not without ample historical precedent. Elsewhere in the world he observes various right-wing movements and Brexit as similar responses to nonwhite people gaining more of a foothold in traditionally white-dominated societies. To Coates, Obama’s ascension didn’t signal the arrival of equality but confirmed that “it was always the case that individually gifted and lucky African-Americans could go far,” he explained....

Matthew Hoffman is a big believer in the power of positive thinking. His text-based work seems to inhabit a category that could be called “affirmational art.” The 35-year-old Chicagoan is the savvy sloganeer behind You Are Beautiful, which began modestly 12 years ago with a packet of 100 stickers and has since grown into an art-world phenomenon; the iconic silver rectangles with black letters have been stuck to walls worldwide, inspiring exhibitions and public installations dedicated to those three impactful words....

With proof recently surfacing that Richard Nixon was secretly plotting with South Vietnam to undercut his opponent in the 1968 presidential election, I realized that I’ve now lived through three acts of alleged electoral sabotage by foreign countries conniving with Republicans. And, of course, there’s the most recent case where Russian hackers, who may have been under the command of President Vladimir Putin, allegedly tapped into Democratic National Committee computers this summer and released embarrassing e-mails that undercut Hillary Clinton’s campaign....

Tommy’s life is a mess and so are his digs. He occupies what was probably once a garden room in the Dublin home of his old Uncle Maurice, who took over his upbringing when Tommy was a boy and is back at it now that Tommy’s a middle-aged divorced man on the skids. As rendered by set designer Todd Rosenthal, Tommy’s bit of the house is connected to the rest by French doors; it’s got its own outdoor entrance, a bank of tall windows, and a little sink of the sort that you might imagine Maurice’s dead wife, Maura, using to wash potting soil from her hands....

The 54th annual University of Chicago Folk Festival comes to the school’s Mandel Hall and Ida Noyes Hall this weekend with three days of live music, workshops, lessons, dances, folk jams, storytelling sessions, and more. The concerts, which take place in Mandel Hall, are on the nights of Fri 2/14, Sat 2/15, and Sun 2/16. Of the eight acts, most play two sets at two different shows; the best-known names include ten-time Grammy-­winning bluegrass fiddler Bobby Hicks, who performs on Friday and Saturday nights, and “old-time supergroup” Bigfoot, which appears Saturday and Sunday....

Since trumpeter Russ Johnson moved to Milwaukee in 2011—and thanks to his comfort with the 90-minute commute to Chicago—the local jazz and improvised music scene has been injected with a brash yet thoughtful presence and an aesthetic that connects postbop fundamentals with freedom-seeking impulses. Another benefit has been Johnson’s vast network of collaborators from New York, as quite a few top-notch figures have traveled to the midwest to work with him....

Last week I went to Lost Lake for the House of Angostura’s U.S. Cocktail Challenge Chicago regionals—a competition to determine who advances to the U.S. finals in New Orleans next week at Tales of the Cocktail. “Regional” appears to be a relative term: while one of the bartenders was a Chicagoan, the others hailed from Nevada, Wyoming, and Washington state, respectively. I’ll admit to rooting for the Chicago bartender—Elizabeth Mickiewicz, who works at Drumbar—but it wasn’t hometown bias that made me prefer her cocktail to the others....

Sylvester’s album Stars: “I Need Somebody to Love Tonight” closes out the album. Over the weekend I attended a wedding DJed by my friend and onetime neighbor Azikiwe, a dynamite disc jockey who also happens to design brilliant tapestries featuring rappers like Cam’ron juxtaposed against arcing dolphins. Azikiwe played a bunch of wedding-party standbys that are guaranteed to get a dance floor going (Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” is the first song that comes to mind), but also dropped a couple cuts for the time of the night he calls “getting dark”: when the crowd is so lost in the euphoria of dancing that the DJ can play out tracks the audience might be unfamiliar with....

COURTESY LOLLAPALOOZA Blood Orange A festival as huge and commercial as Lollapalooza inevitably brings a ton of detractors out of the woodwork, so it’s a given that Lolla weekend will play host to at least one counter- or antifest—and this year there are several. The Neon Marshmallow festival—an experimental-music blowout that has, in previous years, featured big-time noisemakers such as Thurston Moore and Guardian Alien—runs for four days at the Burlington....

Clayton Hauck Andre Davis, 32 years after he was convicted of rape and murder Two years ago, Andre Davis was released from prison after DNA evidence pointed to another man in the 1980 rape and murder of three-year-old Brianna Stickel. Of the 100-plus inmates wrongfully convicted in Illinois, Davis had spent more time than any of them behind bars: 32 years. However, Davis’s mother said that in the months after my visit she saw more of her son’s anger emerge....

Courtesy of Savage Sister’s Facebook Savage Sister Next Wednesday the Whistler hosts Chicago’s fourth annual tribute to mystical British singer-songwriter Kate Bush, which also just happens to coincide with Bush’s recent return to the stage after 35 years. This year’s bash is titled “All the Love,” which takes its name from a song off Bush’s 1982 album, The Dreaming. But instead of selecting that for today’s 12 O’Clock Track I’ve gone with a sullen cover of “Hounds of Love” by local dream-pop group Savage Sister....

Pittsburgh four-piece Code Orange bring their cathartic metalcore to Subterranean on Wednesday, January 18. Last week the band released their third full-length, Forever (Roadrunner), which explores a more melodic sound—it dials back the punk rallying cries but doesn’t abandon the aggression. In the following interview, drummer-vocalist Jami Morgan discusses his connections with Chicago, the process behind the new album, and the importance of DIY spaces as a bulwark against the ascendant alt-right....

Almost a year ago I was wandering around the halls of the Sofitel Hotel with executive chef Greg Biggers as he took me through Illinois’ first certified aged-cheesemaking restaurant for this Reader story. The gist of it was that Biggers had pushed the hotel to start making its own cheeses, cured meats, jams, and pickles under the name Chestnut Provisions, which required a wide range of city and state certifications—including the only cheese-making certification given to a restaurant in the state, the same kind of certification normally given to giant dairy plants cranking out the American cheese slices and mozzarella sticks....

A movie can be absorbing or significant because of its craft, its ambitions, or what its appearance at a certain point in time may augur, even if it doesn’t fully cohere or completely satisfy. Call it a mixed bag, a near miss, or a guilty pleasure, but sometimes the flaws throw into greater relief the qualities that make a film striking. Life Itself is writer-director Dan Fogelman’s second indie feature, following the Al Pacino vehicle Danny Collins (2015), which had its admirers but was a box office disappointment....

Deanna Isaacs Vivian Maier photos at Art Center Highland Park When I talked with photographer and Northwestern University faculty member Pamela Bannos for a column earlier this spring about posthumously famous local photographer Vivian Maier, Bannos told me something surprising: that Maier’s best work may have already been behind her when she moved to Chicago in the mid-1950s. Clocks, newspapers, mirrors, cars, and kids appear frequently in the suburban photos—the children falling into handsome patterns as they skip rocks on Lake Michigan, cluster around a lemonade stand, or help dad wash a gloriously finned midcentury auto....

When Samantha Letscher and Isabel Benatar, the founders of Bossy Chicago, met and became friends a little more than a year ago, in an entrepreneurship course during their sophomore year at Northwestern, they decided that one day they wanted to start a business or organization that would combine their interests in feminism and social change. Over this past winter, they began working in the Garage, Northwestern’s student start-up space, and thinking more seriously about what kind of project they wanted to do....

On Sunday, May 6, while the world woke up to the peerless video Childish Gambino released for his song “This Is America,” I noticed something briefly trending above it on Twitter: “Singularity,” the minimal R&B song from K-pop juggernauts BTS. Less than two weeks later, the group dropped their third album, Love Yourself: Tear (Big Hit Entertainment), which became the first K-pop album to reach the top of the Billboard 200—a huge benchmark for a global phenomenon that’s slowly been crossing over into American culture....

First there’s the egg. An oeuf Outhier headlines the menu at the Blanchard, a new French restaurant from chef Jason Paskewitz, who was last seen endeavoring with contemporary American dishes at Gemini Bistro and the late Rustic House. Fans of Next’s inaugural Paris 1906 dinner might at a glance mistake Paskewitz’s egg for the truffled oeuf Benedictine that kicked off that Escoffier-inspired menu. While it’s certainly a wee showstopper, arriving mounted on an egg cup, its crown neatly cut away to reveal a tuft of greenery and onyx pearls of domestic sturgeon caviar, it’s a more modern invention named for a French chef who cooked for the shah of Iran in the 70s....

Santina Croniser Just look at those chandeliers. After depositing my coat at the (apparently mandatory) coat check at the Union League Club on Thursday night, I walked toward the elevators, looking for signs pointing to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s 21st annual Whisky Extravaganza. There were none, but I did see a white-haired gentleman wearing a kilt and asked him for directions, assuming he was an official part of the tasting....