I generally avoided the Chicago Riverwalk even before the pandemic, but Footnotes gave me a genuinely great reason to spend a night gazing up at Merch Mart.
Tag: Vol. 51 No. 11
Issue of March 3, 2022
Best of Chicago 2021
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Posted inBest of Chicago
Best visual artists turned improvising music group
On a chilly early evening in fall 2021, during the only proper opening that west-side backyard gallery the Franklin held all year, a crowd gathered to hear improvised music. Of the handful of live-music events I’ve attended since the start of the pandemic, it was easily the most magical. The vibe was relaxed and informal, […]
Posted inBest of Chicago
Best performance space for dealing with interior microclimates
Lifeline Theatre Anyone who frequents establishments in the summer months knows that there are generally two temperatures: not cold enough and Hell has frozen over. Even so, some locations deal with that microclimate variety at any time of year. So, when it comes to dealing with indoor temperature changes, no one does it better than […]
Posted inBest of Chicago
Best career breakout by a DJ
DJ Mochi soundtracked many of our 2021 nights. At first COVID-19 meant that those parties—including the Global Currency evening he hosts with DJ Iggy at Blind Barber—were virtual, but soon most everyone returned to the dance floor. Even in the midst of a pandemic, Mochi’s nights could pack rooms, with lines outside. He helped hold […]
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Best rainy Sunday-afternoon activity
Perhaps on a spring day, when the falling water draws out the musky smell of earth and everything seems to be coming alive, or maybe in the fall, when the cold shards of rain feel more menacing than welcome—no matter the season, there’s no better place to be than a record store on a rainy […]
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Best new west-side arts space
To activist Glen Kehrein, it was appalling that Austin lacked a center for fine and performing arts to showcase the neighborhood’s homegrown talent. His dream was to convert the unused auditorium in the former Siena High School expansion—one of the city’s finest remaining examples of midcentury modern architecture—into a professionally equipped community arts center. Kehrein’s […]
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Best fat daddy dom bitch on TV
Minxxx shows brightly with the kinky creativity, intention, and DIY spirit so unique to the Windy City’s gay underground.
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Best R&B artist on a hot streak
Since 2018, Chicago singer-rapper Jean Deaux has released at least an EP or full-length every year, and there’s hardly a bum note in her growing discography. She harnesses the enticing aesthetics of R&B, reaching for the sublime with whispery percussion, lithe and steamy guitar melodies, supple keyboards in plush, downy drifts, and smokily smoldering vocals […]
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Best entry in a long-running science fiction saga by a power-metal band
In a world where doorstop science-fiction and fantasy novels have become gold mines for networks and nearly every comic book aspires to be a movie treatment, it’s such a delight to come across genre work that has zero interest in becoming anyone else’s intellectual property. Batavia trio Mechina have been reliably putting out entries in […]
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Best sports team with unwavering support from queer Chicago
Before the Chicago Sky made it anywhere near the Women’s National Basketball Association finals against the Phoenix Mercury in 2021, you could find droves of queer women sitting in the spacious stands of the Wintrust Arena supporting Chicago’s home team. With two-time WNBA MVP Candace Parker, who is from Naperville, returning to Chicago to join […]
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Best flash mob by middle-aged Korean women in a Korean market
Ajumma Rising February 1, 2022: Serpent Day. Candy-Making Day. World Hijab Day. National Baked Alaska Day. International Face and Body Art Day. And a historic day when the Lunar New Year coincided with the first day of Black History Month—and a troupe of ajummas in top-to-toe uniform—perms, visors, puffy vests, patterned pants, and practical shoes—descended […]
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Best Girl Scout cookie spin-off
“It is important for us to have craveable and approachable treats executed at a high level that will make you a little bit happier than when you walked into the door,” says pastry chef Aya Fukai, 38, understating the sublime experience of savoring her scrumptious Samoa cakes—one of her most popular creations. Made with a […]
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Best homage to White Sox pitcher Carlos Rodón and his April no-hitter
White Sox pitcher Carlos Rodón threw a no-hitter against Cleveland on a Wednesday night in April. Within a couple hours of that victory, Chicago artist Mike Noren tweeted a hand-drawn homage to the grand achievement under the handle Gummy Arts—that’s the name Noren uses for his sprawling oeuvre of homemade trading cards that feature lovingly […]
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Best place to read a play
Perceptions Theatre If you’ve had your fill of dead white male playwrights, or even if you just want to add some variety to your dramatic play reading list, Perceptions Theatre has the prescription for you. The company, founded by artistic director Myesha-Tiara, has been hosting a play reading club that features BIPOC playwrights. During the […]
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Best 184-page love letter to Chicago
Chicago is too often presented as a violent wasteland rather than a cultural wonderland, for terrible reasons and occasionally for less terrible reasons. Many fantastic facets of our city have been underdocumented not out of nefariousness, but because everyone who cared already knew. In pre-Instagram days, who had an incentive to record a sight as […]