Warmer weather is finally here to stay. You’re probably hoping to be everywhere all at once, but here are a few things you won’t want to miss, in the first iteration of our new column, The To-Do. MargueriteFri 5/26, 8 PM, Color Club, 4146 N. Elston, sold out, 18+ ReveriesSat 5/27, 8 PM, Color Club, […]
Tag: Vol. 52 No. 16
Issue of May 18, 2023
On the cover: “Inmates are extremely manipulative”
Hundreds of lawsuits against Wexford Health Sources, a for-profi t medical corporation operatin inside Illinois prisons, allege substandard care. An employee handbook describes how clinicians were trained to be skeptical of incarcerated patients.
Illustration by John Garrison.
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Posted inArts & Culture
Who’s afraid of stanley brouwn?
I don’t understand. stanley brouwn steps? Oh, another place!He walks. . . . He appears in places and walks maybe, and he’s video-ing while he walks?stanley brouwn steps! [Laughs, whispers.] What? [Laughs.]Where’s he going to appear? [Laughs.]London! So flowed a conversation between two seven-year-olds who sat next to me on a bench nestled in the Art Institute’s […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Only romance
If there’s one thing we know about Afrofuturism, it’s that it uses speculative genres as a future-imagining device to share criticism and discontent about the present. Asian Futurism, as discussed by scholars such as Dawn Chan and Xin Wang is a loose discourse that struggles to find footholds in the west outside of techno-Orientalism. There […]
Posted inMusic
Hip-hop artist Kari Faux found musical joy in Chicago while making Real B*tches Don’t Die
Finally! An album for the real bitches. The ones who let their heart override their wounds and will flash fangs when necessary. This type of R&B- and funk-tinged, southern-fried hip-hop can’t be duplicated, only demonstrated, and that’s exactly what rapper Kari Faux does on her anthemic new album, Real B*tches Don’t Die. Every artist wants […]
Posted inOn Politics
Lemming city
Quick—name Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s first chief of staff! You probably can’t—unless your name is Mick Dumke. I mention Mick (a Block Club Chicago editor and my former writing partner here at the Reader) because he actually knew the answer when I asked him about it the other day. Then he sort of apologized, apparently a […]
Posted inMusic
Tinariwen enhance the Tuareg blues of Amatssou with touches of country-and-western and ambient
In 2017, Reader critic Peter Margasak noted Tinariwen’s recurring practice of featuring rock musicians as guests on their records. Their new album, Amatssou, doesn’t change that approach, but it perfects it. Originally, the long-running ensemble of Tuareg musicians (also known as Kel Tamasheq, meaning speakers of Tamasheq) intended to make the album at Jack White’s […]
Posted inFilm
Review: Love to Love You, Donna Summer
This is a daughter’s exploration of who her mother was at her core, and why she lived her life and made her choices the way she did.
Posted inMusic
Chicago trio French Police play darker and tour bigger
Packed into a garage in Garfield Ridge, Manny Herrera and brothers Jesse and Brian Flores practice for an imminent tour of Mexico by their postpunk band French Police. It’s late March, and their first Mexican date is just days away. It’ll be the Mexican American trio’s fourth tour, and their first outside the States. They’re […]
Posted inMusic
The Bollweevils are the rare pop-punk band aging gracefully
It feels like a lifetime since Chicago pop-punk veterans the Bollweevils have put out an album. They formed in 1989, and unless you count a posthumous compilation, they haven’t released a full-length since 1996—that one was Weevilive, a live recording of a Metro set from the previous year. The group went dormant after a final […]
Posted inMusic
Producer Thelonious Martin keeps hip-hop’s old wisdom alive
Sitting under the warm blue lights of his home studio, Chicago producer Thelonious Martin reflects on his musical influences as he studies a set of shelves completely stacked with obscure vinyl. On the shelves’ top right corner rest thick biographies about two of the greatest innovators in their respective genres: jazz pianist Thelonious Monk and […]
Posted inCity Life
Black high school lacrosse is here to stay
Black teenagers can view lacrosse as a healthy outlet and a new gateway to seek athletic or academic scholarships. It’s very understandable that Chicago wants to send a clear message that this sport is for everyone.
Posted inFood & Drink
Worlds collide with DaNang Kitchen’s Vietnamese brunch
There’s no such thing as brunch in Vietnam. . . . Nevertheless, Argyle Street’s DaNang Kitchen recently started offering a “Vietnamese brunch,” featuring a few relatively uncommon dishes that can address a Western appetite for hangover-mitigating egg skillets.
Posted inMusic
French coldwave legends Martin Dupont embark on their first U.S. tour
Martin Dupont was one of the most enigmatic and exhilarating coldwave bands of the 1980s. The group was founded in 1980 in Marseille, France, by songwriter and bassist Alain Seghir, who wanted to explore new wave after spending time in rock and jazz bands. Over the next few years he linked up with several musically […]
Posted inFilm
‘That’s movie magic to me’
Neal O’Bryan founded Workshed Animation, which specializes in stop-motion horror shorts and features, with longtime collaborator and childhood friend Chad Thurman in 2019.