The Hoodoisie is a radically politicized live “news show” that takes place on a regular basis “in a different gentrifying neighborhood” according to its founders Ricardo Gamboa, Lily Be, and Steven Beaudion. Live events usually resemble a late night talk show, but with an infusion of what Hoodoisie organizers call “block-optics,” a focus on people […]
Tag: Vol. 51 No. 20
Issue of July 7, 2022
Welcome to the skate park
OnWord Skate Collective embraces skaters of all ages and abilities, prioritizing women, trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people.
by Taryn Allen
On the cover: Photo by DuWayne Padilla
Find a print copy of the Reader.
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Posted inCity Life
Agenda: Tue 7/19/22
Satan seeks menstrual products to help his followers ride the blood highway. The Satanic Temple of Illinois has partnered with the Pilsen Food Pantry for Menstruatin’ With Satan, a supply drive to collect and distribute pads and tampons for neighbors who need them. Menstrual products are one of the most sought after but least donated […]
Posted inCity Life
Agenda: Mon 7/18/22
One of the area’s most underrated art treasures is the Lubeznik Center for the Arts (101 W. Second, Michigan City, Indiana), which is free and open to the public six days a week (closed Tuesdays). On view now is “moniquemeloche presents,” a showcase of artists represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in West Town, which […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Threads of connection for the cause
Quilting has long been used as a tool of creative resistance. During the Civil War, abolitionists sold quilts to fundraise for their cause. Starting in 1965, the Alabama-based Freedom Quilting Bee Cooperative helped raise money for Black community members who lost income due to their involvement in the fight for civil rights. Today, artists like […]
Posted inCity Life
Agenda: Sat 7/16/22 and Sun 7/17/22
SAT 7/16 Every third Saturday of the month the South Shore Nature Sanctuary (7059 S. South Shore) welcomes volunteers to help preserve the area’s ecosystems. Past volunteer days have included everything from collecting and planting native seeds to performing nest checks on baby purple martins, a species in decline because the birds have learned […]
Posted inCity Life
Agenda: Fri 7/15/22
There’s no shortage of outdoor theater in Chicago in the summer, and Midsommer Flight is right in the mix with (appropriately enough) A Midsummer Night’s Dream, opening tonight at 6 PM in Lincoln Park (behind and across the street from the Lincoln Park Cultural Center at 2045 N. Lincoln Park West) and running there through […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
It’s time to worry about monkeypox
The best edible for weed and more quickies
Posted inArts & Culture
28 years of freedom on the wall
What do Cesar Chavez, Ayn Rand, and Harold Washington have in common? They are among the 69 people featured in Adam Brooks’s public art project Freedom Wall, which has been installed on the building at 325 W. Huron since 1994. The text-based installation, which is viewable from the Brown Line’s Chicago stop, has undoubtedly been […]
Posted inCity Life
Summer in the city: youth edition
Ah, summer vacation: the time of year when Chicago’s youth are free from the confines of school—but aren’t allowed to be in Millennium Park after six at night on weekends (or anywhere in public after 10 PM) without an adult present. What’s a teen to do during the lazy hazy days of summer? FREE TIME […]
Posted inMusic
Simon Joyner shows all sides of the story on his latest LP
If things look bleak to you, Omaha-based singer-songwriter Simon Joyner won’t contradict you, but he might complicate your understanding of the darkness. The narrator of “Caroline’s Got a Secret,” the first cut on his new LP, Songs From a Stolen Guitar (Grapefruit), seems blind to the fact that the confidence he’s breaking involves Caroline’s suicidal […]
Posted inCity Life
Riding the wave of the Crocs
The first time I tried on a pair of Crocs, I was in study hall. This kid named Marlin slid them off and told me I had to give them a go. Marlin wasn’t known for his sartorial choices. He liked to wear thick white socks with flip-flops; the thong wedged into the cotton between […]
Posted inMusic
DakhaBrakha create eclectic folk music for an antifascist Ukraine
It’s impossible to listen to DakhaBrakha right now outside a political context; they’re a Ukrainian folk band based in Kyiv. After Russia launched its full-scale war on their country in February, the band published an impassioned anti-Putin post on their website. But long before that explicit statement of solidarity, the four-piece group were using their […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The ghosts of the drowned villages
“Water, water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink,” Coleridge’s sailor complains in the famous 1798 poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” The mariner is talking about the plight on his ship, but he may as well be describing the city of New York. That year, a yellow fever epidemic led to an outcry over […]
Posted inCity Life
Taste, watch, and find your homeland
Looking for something to do this weekend and beyond? Here are some ideas for you. FRI 7/8 Ray Borchers’s “Coasting on None” opens tonight at T.F. Projects (1513 N. Western, Unit 104), the private showroom of local artist and odd man Tony Fitzpatrick. Borchers is known in the music community for Sharpie-rendered T-shirts of cult […]
Posted inMusic
Hulder spreads the dark wings of her black-metal hybrid on her first full-band tour
Named for a type of eerie forest spirit from Scandinavian folklore, Hulder is the project of multi-instrumentalist Marz Riesterer (aka Marliese Beeuwsaert, formerly of Bleeder, where she was known as “the Inquisitor”). Born in Belgium and based in the Pacific Northwest, this one-woman force of nature commanded attention for last year’s full-length debut, Godslastering: Hymns […]