We started with a bang. In January, a mob of supporters of the last presidential administration attacked the United States Capitol building in D.C., grabbing lecterns, posting selfies, and leaving a trail of confusion and “released on own recognizance” privilege in their wake. And it’s possible 2021 will end with a whimper. The new Omicron […]
Tag: 2021 Year in Review
Posted inArts & Culture
The best Chicago books of 2021
Every year, I wonder if Chicago’s literary renaissance will ever start to ebb. No city can keep this up forever, right? But just like last year and the year before, dozens of new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books by Chicagoans garnered national acclaim in 2021. In no particular order, here are my favorite Chicago books […]
Posted inFilm
No superman is an island
Disney used to be best known for its children’s animation. But over the last decade the House of Mouse has become the House of Hulk. Princesses and neotenous animal companions haven’t vanished. In terms of market share and screen dominance, they’ve been shouldered aside by the thundering pectorals and power beams of the Marvel Cinematic […]
Posted inPerforming Arts Feature
Plays in a pandemic
By the time this year ends (it is gonna end, right?), Reader critics will, by my count, have reviewed 69 live theater and dance performances. That’s far less than in most years, but a veritable cornucopia after the onstage famine that began in March 2020. But just when we think it’s safe to go back […]
Posted inPerforming Arts Feature
‘What happened in the community was almost like a brush fire’
What hit harder, the racism or the pandemic? When the world shut down, theater performances came to a halt. No one was laughing about anything. Improvisers couldn’t perform, and theaters across the city lost big money. Alongside COVID-19, the improv community had a great awakening regarding mistreatment of BIPOC talent. Major theaters retroactively diversified leadership […]
Posted inOn Culture
Thompson Center survival is glad tidings
Everybody knows, especially at this season of the year, it’s a bad idea to look a gift horse in the mouth. But what if he opens it? What if he flashes you a great big horsey smile? And you just can’t look away fast enough? I’m asking because we got a wonderful gift last week, […]
Posted inDance
The collective quest of Chicago dance
Two events occurred toward the close of 2020 that suggested that life and art as we knew it (for better or for worse) might have a fighting chance of existing in 2021: the election in November and the emergency use authorization of COVID-19 vaccines in December. But more briefly than the duration of most resolutions, […]
Posted inMusic
COVID kept on complicating our relationship with music in 2021
In September, a local collective of house DJs threw a party at Podlasie Club, an Avondale Polish bar with a distinctive L-shaped neon sign out front. The members of the Humboldt Arboreal Society usually spin under a tent in Humboldt Park, but for that one-off with veteran local DJ Rahaan, they’d made an exception—in part […]
Posted inOn Politics
The year of the mogul
Wirtz, Reinsdorf, and Ricketts battle Bluhm to see which mogul the mayor
and council love the most.