Posts

Do police belong at Pride? Does the man who mugged me belong at my birthday party? Does my shitty ex-boyfriend belong at my graduation? Is gas station sushi ever acceptable? It’s not a surprise to me that queer police officers want to be in the Pride parades. Pride is a fabulous time. To be honest, who wouldn’t want to be part of Pride? But there’s a particular privilege—and lack of self-awareness—that comes with believing police officers deserve to be in these celebrations, particularly when they, queer as they may be, stand on the backs of the people whose brutality birthed this global movement....

Out To Climb

Sharp songwriting and bombastic delivery have made King Von one of fastest-rising stars in drill, the pummeling hip-hop subgenre born in Chicago. Born Dayvon Bennett, the 25-year-old rapper grew up in Englewood, and he’s been filling his verses with crime-fiction narratives at least since his breakout single, 2018’s “Crazy Story.” As he told Genius in a video this spring, he draws on urban novels and on his own experiences for his lyrics—his history of legal trouble includes arrests for firearm possession and attempted murder (he was acquitted of the latter after spending three and a half years in Cook County Jail)....

According to a recent NPR story, 12 journalists have been murdered in Mexico so far this year, making it the deadliest nation in the world for reporters. Rebeca Alemán’s two-character play for Water People Theater (presented as part of the third annual Chicago International Latino Theater Festival: Destinos) addresses the crisis through the story of Paulina (played by Alemán), a Venezuelan-born human rights reporter in Mexico trying to regain her memory and speech after being in a coma for several months....

On their new EP, Happy Medium, everyman Chicago rap group Jyroscope reflect on navigating middle age in what remains of the middle class, while the production from fellow local Montana Macks evokes the halcyon hip-hop sounds of 90s crate diggers such as Pete Rock and DJ Premier. IB Fokuz and Collasoul Structure rap about balancing their passion for music with family responsibilities—and with day jobs that will actually pay the bills....

Courtesy of Lupe Fiasco’s Facebook Lupe Fiasco We live in an age where there are a multitude of avenues for you to stick your foot in your mouth, and Lupe Fiasco has suffered for it. The public can handle mercurial musicians—hell, celeb-centric media requires them to stay ahead of the information—but it helps when these artists create work that stirs something in people (see Kanye). That hasn’t been the case for Lupe in recent years....

In Japan, nobility and samurai cultivated orchids as symbols of bravery, and businesses gifted with them would be graced with prosperity and success. In China, orchids have been used for thousands of years as medicine, prized for their fragrance, and revered as a virtuous plant by gentleman scholars. The Aztecs extracted orchid essence and drank it to enhance their physical strength. “Testicle,” thought the Greek botanist who gave the flower the name we call it by for its tuberous roots....

This is my fifth year rounding up box sets for the Reader‘s gift guide, and during that time the music business in general—and the CD business in particular—has continued to decline. But music remains a gift that keeps on giving, and box sets are more fun to unwrap than digital downloads. Plus, instead of just taking up a bit of space on a hard drive, they can occupy prime real estate on your mantel, bookshelf, or, um, floor....

Q: I’m positive you’ve written something about this in the past. I have searched your archives but have only managed to find people arguing in the comments when what I want is your advice. My 16-year-old son is stealing our sex toys. My son took my husband’s handheld toy several months ago. I found it where it shouldn’t have been and let my husband know. He talked to our son and told him these are personal items, like a toothbrush, and that he needed to stop taking them....

I told you so. Last year, when I saw Molly Smith Metzler’s Cry It Out at the Humana Festival in Louisville, I said its topical content and efficient structure were sure to earn it a berth in somebody’s subscription season. Sure enough, here it is at Northlight Theatre, its virtues intact. The play gives us four new parents living in close proximity to one another on Long Island. There’s corporate lawyer Jessie, traumatized by her daughter’s touch-and-go birth and thinking she might extend her maternity leave into permanent stay-at-home status....

O n Friday, March 31, 1922, at a remote farm outside the Bavarian town of Kaifeck, someone slaughtered six people-the Gruber family and their maid-striking each one repeatedly on the head and face with a pickax. Four days later neighbors found the bodies. They also discovered that the farm and livestock had been well tended all weekend; the killer had apparently moved in for a while before vanishing. Still, West has assembled potent incidents into an explosive mix, as is her wont....

In the late summer of 1989, Barack Obama drove from Hyde Park to South Shore in his rickety yellow Datsun hatchback to pick up Michelle Robinson, his colleague and adviser at the Loop law firm Sidley Austin, for what would become a historic first date. The short drive is the setting of the opening-credits sequence of Southside With You, an endearing dramatization of the First Couple’s initial romantic outing that stretches, like Before Sunrise, across an eventful day and night....

Courtesy of Wikipedia Kanye West Yeezy season is unmistakably upon us, now that Kanye West has released the official version of “All Day,” the latest single from his forthcoming So Help Me God. The Kanye campaign has been in motion since New Year’s Day, when he released the sentimental “Only One,” the first of his many collaborations with Paul McCartney. The song generated as much hype as any official Kanye track these days, seeding what became an avalanche of trend pieces predicated on the Twitter reactions of young fans who supposedly didn’t know who McCartney was—some of whom were openly or covertly trolling trend-piece writers by feigning ignorance....

Michael Gebert Bun cha ha noi, noodle soup with grilled pork belly and herbs I don’t know what happened at Embeya when co-owner and chef Thai Dang was suddenly and messily locked out by his former partner—one side talked a lot about it and the other not at all, so it’s hard to make a fair judgement. I know what I thought about its initial incarnation as a fine-dining, mostly refined Asian spot: it was a civilized place that served some beautiful food in a gorgeous downtown space (by Karen Herold), and in another time it might have been a runaway hit....

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago.

Rapper Leikeli47 grew up in the borough of Brooklyn and the state of Virginia and considers both to be her home turf, but her recent second album and major-label debut, Acrylic (RCA/Hardcover), evokes the sounds of black life throughout the U.S. She references historically black universities and colleges, samples ballroom-culture legend MC Debra, and borrows from heat-stricken gospel, raw dancehall, placid neosoul, blustery NYC radio rap, menacing trap, and an upbeat bricolage of feel-good pop....

In 1971, Richard J. Daley won the fifth of what would ultimately be six Chicago mayoral elections (he died of a heart attack during his sixth term, in 1976). A little musical called Grease started its very first run at a Lincoln Avenue theater called Kingston Mines. And that summer the Union Stockyards closed for business, leaving a trail of their own kind of grease in the rubble on south Racine Street....

Christian K. Lee / For Sun-Times Media Mayoral challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia tells skeptical reporters that he really does have a financial plan for the city. Challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia faced a roomful of reporters and camera crews Friday morning to prove that he’s ready to be mayor. But he’s been vague about what he’d do about annual budget deficits and $20 billion in unfunded pension obligations. Emanuel and his allies have hammered the point, portraying Garcia’s squishiness as evidence that he’s not mayoral material....