Getty Images Local mom says kids are less likely to act like creeps via text. A few days ago I wrote a Bleader post that spoke kindly of the written word as we find it these days—texted, e-mailed, embedded in social media sites . . . The telephone—not to mention eye-to-eye conversation—is passe and deserves to be. “I love texting,” she wrote. “My kids answer me back almost immediately. And they have no attitude in texting....
Jason Isbell had the shifting fabric of the south on his mind when he wrote the songs on his new album, The Nashville Sound (Southeastern), and his observations have only become more resonant over the past year—to say nothing of the past few weeks. On “White Man’s World” the narrator indicts himself for passively condoning racist attitudes: “I’m a white man looking in a black man’s eyes / Wishing I’d never been one of the guys / Who pretended not to hear another white man’s joke....
In what will surely be an affront to certain species of indiscriminate eaters, there is no dolphin, baby seal, or mermaid meat on the menu at Kinmont. For the rest of us it’s comforting to know that the Element Collective’s new fish house serves only sea creatures that aren’t (yet) about to go the way of the coelacanth. That the folks behind Old Town Social and Nellcote would choose this moment to open a seafood restaurant is no surprise....
I doubt the media and the American public will ever see eye to eye on what journalists do and why they do it. The Pew Research Center just released results of a national survey into what the public makes of the Trump-media relationship. Most Americans think it’s unhealthy. I don’t think that would have been my answer. Current tensions have made the relationship between Trump administration and the U.S. news media generally UNHEALTHY Let me put it another way: Would you call the relationship between a parent and a tantrum-throwing two-year-old healthy if the parent acted as the kid’s enabler?...
The weirdest thing about this play, Otherworld Theatre’s first full production in their new digs off Irving Park, is not that it’s a superhero comic come to life, one blatant affront after another to the naturalistic bylaws concerning who can and can’t fly and how to fight crime while flying or fight flying crimes in plays. It’s how enjoyable and moving playwright Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons’s excellently plotted saga turns out to be....
In a sure sign of the Christmas season, state rep Luis Arroyo has made peace with his arch rival, Cook County assessor Joe Berrios—in distinctly Chicago fashion. In addition to being assessor, Berrios is chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party and has been a player in Humboldt Park politics almost since I was in high school. The first sign of peace came last month, when no one filed to run against Berrios, who will get to keep his committeeman seat because it’s really hard to lose when you’re running unopposed....
St. Vincent If you’re searching for a sign that the weather should start to warm up a quick look at Soundboard should suffice—to me nothing says “summer is coming” quite like an increasingly packed concert calendar, and this weekend has plenty of live music to offer all over town. “On the recent two-CD set Motion & Connected Works (Thrill Jockey), Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist Koen Holtkamp inundates listeners with his vision of post-kosmische bliss, collecting in one epic package the new album Motion and three previously vinyl-only releases dating back to 2008,” writes Peter Margasak....
Any serious singer of bossa nova and samba has to deal with the Antonio Carlos Jobim songbook at some point in their career. His tunes turn up over and over in Brazil and elsewhere—”Girl From Ipanema” is virtually shorthand for bossa nova. Vinicius Cantuaria started out as a rocker in the band O Terço during the 70s, but since moving to New York in the mid-90s he’s turned his attention to bossa nova; he once explained that he needed to leave his homeland to appreciate its music....
IMAGE BY LEIF PODHAJSKY/ORIGINAL BAND PHOTO BY DAVID BELISLE Ishmael Butler of Shabazz Palaces It took me a while to get around to listening to Shabazz Palaces‘ Lese Majesty, this year’s follow-up to 2011’s Black Up. I’m not sure why: Black Up was my favorite album of that year, and I’ve been a fan of MC Ishmael Butler (the group is a duo consisting of Butler and multi-instrumentalist Tendai “Baba” Maraire) since his days in Digable Planets....
On his new song “I’mPossible (Basquiat)” Malcolm London doles out autobiographical nuggets and snapshots of his Chicago surroundings before properly introducing himself near the track’s end: “This is me, Malcolm London—poet, activist, educator, and now a rapper.” London is no stranger to rap—the Save Money member has dropped solo cuts before (2013’s “2 AM”), collaborated with scene leaders (such as Vic Mensa for 2012’s “OnGaud”), and guested on rap tracks to perform readings (such as Frank Leone‘s “Redeye(s),” on which London reads the names of Chicagoans murdered in the first two weeks of November 2014)....
At this point, satirizing the sexual hypocrisy of the Catholic church is like shooting fish in a barrel, but at least Jeff Baena, writer and director of The Little Hours, does it with an antique firearm. Adapting two tales from the Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio’s 14th-century compendium of caustic stories, Baena steers a cast of familiar faces—John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon, Paul Reiser, Fred Armisen—through a period-dress but colloquially spoken farce about a cloister of lascivious nuns and their randy gardener....
The Friday before Election Day, I headed to the neighborhoods hugging Midway Airport with one question on my mind: What do the people in Mike Madigan’s legislative district think about Governor Bruce Rauner’s reelection campaign hinging on the demonization of their representative? Inside, taped up on the shiny granite walls and partially obscured by plastic plants, were paper signs pointing to the office upstairs. Walking down a long, shadowy hallway hung with portraits of Lithuanian national heroes I finally came to a locked glass door marked by another inconspicuous piece of paper: The museum was otherwise deserted, so I headed to a spot called Sammy’s Kitchen, right outside the northern walls of Midway....
As Chicago combats a mounting heap of problems—if somehow you’re unaware of them, just read the rest of our blog—many eyes are glued to a war that raged a long time ago in a galaxy . . . well, you get the point. The seventh chapter of the Star Wars saga hits theaters next week, more than a generation after the original trilogy wrapped up. The omnipresence of Star Wars: The Force Awakens already rivals that of Christmas paraphernalia—it feels like it’s everywhere, even in the cereal aisle of the grocery store....
Steve James has directed two of the most lauded nonfiction films of the past 20 years (Hoop Dreams and the CeaseFire portrait The Interrupters); two formally ambitious masterworks (Stevie, about his ongoing relationship with an emotionally disturbed young man he met through the Big Brothers program; and the PBS series The New Americans, which chronicled several different immigrant families); and several exceptional documentaries on a range of subjects. His latest movie, Life Itself (which opens this week at Landmark’s Century Centre), is a biography of beloved Chicago film critic Roger Ebert....
QI’m a 28-year-old pan-curious married guy from the midwest about to move to San Francisco. I’ve been with my wife for ten years (married four), and we’ve started to explore being monogamish. I’m also reexploring my bi attractions. I’ve been thinking a lot about the opportunities for reinvention that our cross-country move might provide. My wife is GGG and fully supportive, but I still feel apprehensive about getting back out there....
What would we do without our Irish playwrights? Conor McPherson alone has filled out the season for more than one local theater this year. And the year before that. And probably next year too. You can see his The Night Alive—about which all the critics and my wife are raving—for just a little while longer at Steppenwolf Theatre. AstonRep, meanwhile, has brought back one by Martin McDonagh, who filled the McPherson function with considerably greater nastiness about a decade back....
On Friday, the Chicago Architecture Center will officially open its new home at 111 E. Wacker. You never heard of the Chicago Architecture Center? Not to worry: it’s our good old friend the Chicago Architecture Foundation, formerly housed in the Santa Fe Building at 224 S. Michigan. CAF has given itself a new name to go with the new digs. That would now be the CAC River Cruise—more impressive than ever, given the new crop of towers along the banks of the Chicago River and Mayor Emanuel’s Riverwalk, pretty as a good pedicure, nestled at their feet....
Andrea Bauer Hirsch Metropolitan High School, in Greater Grand Crossing, once had more than 2,000 students. It now has fewer than 300. A mayor who wanted to privatize his school system would realize it couldn’t be done in one swoop. There’d be too much opposition from parents and union teachers. A better plan would be to add charters slowly, and let them nibble off students from the traditional schools. Many of the regular schools would wither away, until closing them seemed only prudent....
Fat Albert (center) stars in Write a Poem, Share Your Feelings ,which kicks off Friday’s program Last week I singled out the outdoor film screenings at Black Cinema House as some of the only events of their kind I’d recommend. If you want to experience one for yourself, the South Shore organization’s first “Movies Under the Stars” program (copresented by the Rebuild Foundation and Chicago Film Archives) takes place this Friday night at 9 PM....
Comedies have never had much of a place in the Romanian new wave. Cristian Mungiu’s celebrated 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) is about two women trying to obtain an illegal abortion, and his Beyond the Hills (2012) deals with young women who share a history of sexual abuse as orphans. Such acclaimed films as Corneliu Porumboiu’s Police, Adjective (2009), about a young detective who’s put in his place for questioning the country’s harsh drug laws, and Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr....
