“Back in the day, people used to say, ‘Oh, don’t go west of Western,’” Lynne says. “[It’s] always had that negative connotation, so we decided to make that into a positive.” Lynne’s goal is to attract more entrepreneurs: “Small businesses are the glue that hold communities together,” she says. “This neighborhood could use some economic development,” Ty adds. “The economic growth has to be translated into economic growth for the people....

Jon Tai is something of an antimagician. Tricking you, he says, isn’t exactly the point. So while yes, his interactive show Missed Connections can look like some sort of physics-defying, supernatural-forces-are-at-play experience, that’s not the most extraordinary thing. The most extraordinary thing, Tai says, is creating a one-of-a-kind, collectively intense connection between 20 people suddenly, simultaneously swept up in astonishment. “This might seem like a bit out of left field, but I feel like there were a lot of parallel concepts in Grey House, with the way it played a lot with expectations and preconceived notions....

Penelope Skinner, the British playwright whose 2011 play The Village Bike was scheduled to open at Profiles Theatre in August, has withdrawn the rights to the script after reading this week’s Reader investigation. Her American agent, Scott Chaloff, released this statement from Skinner to the Arts Integrity Initiative: The Reader has emailed Chaloff to seek further comment from Skinner.

Among his other skills, William Shakespeare was a most splendid ass kisser, and Richard III—offered now in an exhilaratingly subversive production from the Gift Theatre—is one of his greatest works in the lips-to-butt genre. As the 2012 discovery of his lost bones, buried under an English parking lot, confirmed, Richard suffered from scoliosis—curvature of the spine. It doesn’t seem to have been that big a deal in real life; researchers say that, although it reduced his height, the condition could be hidden with well-tailored clothes and didn’t prevent Richard from walking normally....

UPDATE Friday, March 13: this event has been canceled. Refunds available at point of purchase. Throughout, the actors move purposefully through the audience, demanding prolonged eye contact, puzzling over these creatures who “like to watch.” Grif: “They have a name?” Isa: “America.” Through 4/5: Wed-Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 4 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PM; also Wed 3/11, 2 PM; no performance Fri 3/13; TimeLine Theatre, 615 W....

Shame Parade I’ve been waiting patiently for local punks Split Feet to release their debut full-length since I caught them live last year (read more about it in this week’s Gossip Wolf), and yesterday they posted the entire thing online. The record, which will be out on tape via Accidental Guest Recordings sometime next month, is called Shame Parade, and it was well worth the wait. It’s a dark and moody postpunk record, full of pushy, aggressive tempos and eerie vibes....

Some people can’t get enough Christmas music, but others can’t run away from it fast enough. For more than ten years, Chicago free-jazz veteran Mars Williams (born in Elmhurst in 1955) has been refining a concept that can bring the two camps together under the same roof. Bringing things together is what he does: a prodigal multi-instrumentalist (his tools include most of the saxophone family, clarinets, Autoharp, and a tabletop full of small percussion instruments and toys), he’s played rock with the Psychedelic Furs and the Waitresses, free jazz with the likes of Hal Russell, Peter Brötzmann, and Paal Nilssen-Love, and a bit of everything in the long-running Liquid Soul, whose freewheeling fusion combines jazz, funk, dance music, hip-hop, and more....

Zoom work meetings are now a way of life. Those who used to frequent offices and conference rooms have had more than their fair share of coworkers with clever Zoom backgrounds, surprise appearances by pets, and “Sorry, can’t hear you, you’re muted” moments. Less frequent are enthusiastic descriptions of pornography, kitchens on fire, and views inside a coworker’s bathroom—and their unsavory bathroom habits. The characters of the web series In-Diana experience it all....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Thursday, February 4, 2016. Independent Police Review Authority sued by Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter is suing IPRA, the agency responsible for investigating police shootings, in order to access records of its investigation into Rekia Boyd’s death. Boyd was fatally shot in 2012 by off-duty Chicago Police Department detective Dante Servin. He was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter charges in April 2015 after the judge in the case said he should have been charged with murder....

Think “dinosaur” and your brain is likely to default to a Tyrannosaurus rex, triceratops, stegosaurus, velociraptor—all the superstar fauna of the Mesozoic era. Step one in diversifying the Field’s dinos: moving Sue out of the museum’s vast white-marbled main room after 18 years. The T. rex skeleton was taken down and rebuilt in a new suite on the second floor earlier this year to make way for Máximo—a massive herbivore native to South America....

We’d bet a Friday-night fish-fry dinner you’ve never heard of Clam Lake. Located in the thick of Wisconsin’s dense North Woods, it’s a town so small it’s more of a crossroads, hidden in the middle of the 858,000-acre Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest (it’s the only town within 725 square miles), making it one of the most remotely populated areas in the state. Imagine driving straight into the woods and happening upon a speck of civilization in the midst of a smattering of little lakes (Upper Clam Lake is the largest; Little Clam Lake is a close second)....

Via Facebook Bob McClory covered human decency for the Reader. He admired activists and reformers, and every couple of months he would tell a story about one or two of them in our pages. Older than other Reader writers, decades older than some, he described a Chicago that needed every ounce of reform it could get—no argument there—but got plenty. If sin thrived in our city, so did the coin’s other side—virtue....

Last week Chicago music and TV historian, Chic-a-Go-Go cofounder, and Reader contributor Jake Austen announced that he’s rebooting his long-running zine Roctober—launched in 1992—after a six-year hiatus! Roctober covers music, comics, and whatever else Austen feels like, and he says it’ll come out once a year going forward. The 52nd issue drops on Halloween as a free PDF, and Austen is raising funds for a print run through Indiegogo. “You will read about the Shaggs, Perry Como, Samhain, Ozone (70s/80s spin-off of Max’s Kansas City pop-punk band the Fast), Holle Thee Maxwell, Blondie, 70s pub-punk band the Destroyers, and Jobriath meets Maude,” he says....

Joan Crawford’s screen persona ran the gamut—from flapper-comedienne in the 1920s to Hollywood tough gal in the’30s and ’40s to more vulnerable characters in the ’50s to a camped-up version of herself in schlocky genre films of the ’60s and ’70s. Along the way, a number of films cemented her as an indelible presence. Mildred Pierce, which is showing this Saturday and Sunday at the Music Box, was one; here are five more....

Last fall I wrote about Microgroove, the first book from gallerist and occasional Reader contributor John Corbett in 21 years. Now, just six months later, he’s back with another new book, though it’s much smaller, both in page count and in it physical dimensions. A Listener’s Guide to Free Improvisation (University of Chicago Press) is designed and organized like a beginner’s field guide, and at a mere four inches across, the 172-page volume can easily fit into the back pocket of your jeans....

Today marks the launch of NBC Universal’s 24-7 comedy-streaming service, Seeso. For $3.99 a month comedy nerds (and everyone else for that matter) can access the archives of sketch shows like Saturday Night Live and Kids in the Hall, countless classic stand-up specials, and new, original content. Matt Besser, cofounder of the Upright Citizens Brigade, is the creator of two new projects available on the site starting today: variety show The UCB Show and his stand-up special, Besser Breaks the Record....

Rahm Emanuel expanded the parking meter deal, but in this campaign flyer he attacks Bob Fioretti for it. Throughout his reelection campaign Mayor Rahm Emanuel has boasted that he reworked the infamous parking meter deal and saved the city $1 billion. “It’s beyond ironic that he’s slamming Fioretti for this,” says Alderman Scott Waguespack (32nd), a critic of the meter deal since it was introduced in 2008. “The mailers they’re sending out are hilarious....

UPDATE Thursday, March 12: this event has been canceled. Refunds available at point of purchase. This Lynn Nottage drama is pure kinetic energy, exploring the illicit ivory trade through the haunting death of Mlima, an African elephant. Griffin Theatre Company’s production, a midwest premiere directed by Jerrell L. Henderson, thrives on its use of movement, sound, and staging to illustrate our shared complicity in the poaching of a vulnerable species. Mlima, whose name means “mountain” in Swahili, is played by a mostly silent David Goodloe, who looms large, literally, over the entire 90 minutes....

Q: Straight male, 48, married 14 years, three kids under age ten. Needless to say, life is busy at our house. My wife and I have stopped having sex. It was my decision. I get the obligation vibe combined with a vanilla sex life, and it just turns me off. We’ve had many conversations about it, and we want to find a balance. But it always defaults back to infrequent and dull, making me frustrated and cranky....

Q: I’ve been with the same amazing man a dozen years. We’ve had our ups and our downs, same as any other couple, but these days life is better than it ever has been for us. Except in the bedroom. A few years ago he started having fantasies about sucking dick. Specifically, he wanted to suck a small one because his is very big and he wanted to “service” a guy who’s less hung than he is....