• Mages Guild bring live electronic music to the Music Box Theatre

    Mages Guild bring live electronic music to the Music Box Theatre
    In April 2023, experimental dance producer and DJ Care launched the Mages Guild label with a 27-track compilation called Midimagick Beta Test. “I started it because it didn’t really feel like there was a platform in Chicago for experimental music that was more dance oriented—or even, a little bit more fun and party oriented, but […]
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  • Chicago Reader Volume 53, No. 23

    Chicago Reader Volume 53, No. 23
    Chicago Reader Volume 53, No. 23. July 11, 2024
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  • Duck fat corn dogs at Ramova Grill and Taproom

    Duck fat corn dogs at Ramova Grill and Taproom
    As a sucker for junk food staples reimagined in an elevated setting, curiosity gets the best of my taste buds when I see something like three corn dogs for $12 on a restaurant menu. How much can you improve the humble corn dog? Turns out, the duck fat corn dogs at the Ramova Grill and […]
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  • Just my op-Minion

    Just my op-Minion
    The Moviegoer is the diary of a local film buff, collecting the best of what Chicago’s independent and underground film scene has to offer. Hear me out: the Minions have gotten a bad rap. It’s one of the many things for which I blame Facebook and its facilitation of the Minion meme. The little yellow […]
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  • Paint it sad

    Paint it sad
    It’s not like we needed another disturbing example of how change and age can destroy a once vibrant entity, but we got one last week.     In 2023, Chicago’s storied American Academy of Art—training ground for some of the nation’s most influential commercial artists—celebrated its 100th birthday. Last week, a statement posted on the Academy website […]
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  • My ‘Black Job’ Is to Protect Democracy

    My ‘Black Job’ Is to Protect Democracy
    Yes, Joe Biden is a flawed candidate, but Donald Trump is a threat to America. Our Black job, if there is such a thing, is to stop him.by Keith Boykin
    I’m not doing this again with y’all.
    While Democrats debate how to respond to Joe Biden’s debate performance, Trump and the Republicans are plotting to erase the entire twentieth century.
    That’s not an exaggeration. Donald Trump has publicly threatened to be a dictator on “day one” if he wins in Novemb
  • The Physical Theater Festival turns 11

    The Physical Theater Festival turns 11
    Alice da Cunha remembers the day she and her husband, Marc Frost, first came up with the idea of the Physical Theater Festival Chicago in the spring of 2013. “I was three months pregnant with our first child,” she says. She and Frost were just out for a walk in West Loop and had stopped […]
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  • New York shoegaze darlings Hotline TNT play a Pitchfork aftershow

    New York shoegaze darlings Hotline TNT play a Pitchfork aftershow
    Hotline TNT mastermind Will Anderson writes shoegaze songs like he’s in a power-pop band. His melodies combine sweet immediacy with quick-and-dirty bluntness, and he supersizes them with the genre’s mandatory phalanx of effects pedals—an approach that has helped this New York group build the kind of buzz that sells out midsize venues. Hotline TNT released […]
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  • Harpist Brandee Younger celebrates Alice Coltrane at the MCA

    Harpist Brandee Younger celebrates Alice Coltrane at the MCA
    Harpist Brandee Younger has spent her career exploring and reimagining the possibilities of her instrument. Since 2011, she’s released seven full-length records that blend and twist classical music into fusions with jazz, hip-hop, pop, and more. She’s also lent her talents as a collaborator and session musician to a who’s who of contemporary artists, including […]
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  • The Rumble provides space to channel political angst and find community through hardcore and metal

    The Rumble provides space to channel political angst and find community through hardcore and metal
    Gentlefolk, start your engines. Hardcore and metal festival the Rumble, launched by Empire Productions in 2010, makes its return this month with two days of mayhem that will spill out into the parking lot of Cobra Lounge, to the great edification of the neighborhood. The fest also includes a preshow at Cobra on Thursday and […]
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  • Limp Bizkit are unlikely trans heroes

    Limp Bizkit are unlikely trans heroes
    Trans people love Limp Bizkit. I can only assume that’s how front man Fred Durst ended up with a role in I Saw the TV Glow, one of the year’s most acclaimed films about trans experiences. There’s nothing inherently “queer” about the Florida nu-metal band, but their output—especially their early material—offers a rich cultural lexicon […]
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  • Take a bao with FAFO at the next Monday Night Foodball

    Take a bao with FAFO at the next Monday Night Foodball
    “It’s not very often that you find a business that will match your freak, as it were.” That would be Rafa Esparza—co-chef of the lysergic pop-up FAFO—who was not talking shit about Moneygun, the West Loop cocktail bar where he and coconspirator Anthony Baier set up shop in April to sling Malört grilled cheese, bacon […]
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  • Color rules at Color Factory Chicago

    Color rules at Color Factory Chicago
    Immersive art exhibition invites visitors of all ages to step into an exciting, colorful adventure Everyone loves a splash of color. In fact, last year Psychology Today reported that color is an important stimulus for the brain, and can enhance mood and memory, lower blood pressure, and more. But in a recent study of data […]
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  • Eighty-six the Italian beef

    Eighty-six the Italian beef
    With its ample golden hour shots of the city, mile-a-minute, profanity-laced dialogue, and abundance of Italian beef, few TV shows have brought Chicago to the small screen as authentically (and ferociously) as FX’s breakout hit The Bear, which recently returned for its third season. Though the top-notch ensemble cast continues to deliver powerful, dramatic, and […]
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  • Missing Chicago Pastor Found Dead in Car Pulled from Des Plaines River

    Missing Chicago Pastor Found Dead in Car Pulled from Des Plaines River
    The remains of a missing Chicago pastor were found after a week. Authorities confirmed that the body of 53-year-old Warren Beard was discovered in his car, which was pulled from the Des Plaines River in the South Suburbs on Tuesday.
    Beard, last seen in Joliet on July 2, was the assistant pastor and Sunday school teacher at New Israelite Missionary Baptist Church. He was well-loved by his community.
    “This is not how we wanted this to end, but unfortunately, it has,” said Rockdale Fire
  • Demetruest wants to help you slow down

    Demetruest wants to help you slow down
    “I’m trying to get people to slow down and realize that they deserve to take the time to explore their feelings,” says singer-songwriter Demetruest. They’re explaining the thesis of their upcoming EP, They All Kept Moving, While I Stood Still, the final piece of their EP trilogy. “I think we’re constantly in a go, go, […]
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  • Man Charged After Woman Found Dead In Sleeping Bag On NYC Sidewalk

    Man Charged After Woman Found Dead In Sleeping Bag On NYC Sidewalk
    Photo: Getty Images
    A man has been charged after a woman’s remains were found in a sleeping back on a sidewalk in New York City.
    On Friday (July 5), officers responded to reports of a suspicious package with a foul smell outside of a building on East 27th Street.
    Authorities found remains, later identified as 31-year-old Yazmeen Williams, in a plastic bag that was placed inside a sleeping bag and tied to a dolly cart. Williams was also found with gunshot wounds in the head, and her death w
  • A tale of two cities

    A tale of two cities
    Part of Art Design Chicago, the vibrant exhibition and event series that celebrates the city’s flourishing art and design scene, “Opening Passages: Photographers Respond to Chicago and Paris” is a citywide photographic exhibition in which photographers from these two sister cities engage in transatlantic dialogues that revolve around issues such as gentrification, migrant segregation, and […]
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  • Hope Chicago’s GoalGetters Conference 2024 Helps Set Up Local Students and Parents for Post-Secondary Success

    Hope Chicago’s GoalGetters Conference 2024 Helps Set Up Local Students and Parents for Post-Secondary Success
    Moderated by CBS2 reporter Jamaica Ponder, West Side of Chicago natives Larenz, LaRon and Lahmard Tate speak to Hope Scholars about growing up in Chicago and their pathways to success in both higher education and careers on June 27 at the Hope Chicago GoalGetters 2024 Conference at Illinois Institute of Technology (Credit: Hope Chicago).
    The Hope Chicago GoalGetters Conference 2024 brought together nearly 1,000 Hope Scholars and Parent Scholars for five days of intensive programming to foster su
  • The Carr Report: Earl Crawley: From parking attendant to millionaire

    The Carr Report: Earl Crawley: From parking attendant to millionaire
    A couple of years ago, a friend of mine sent me a video detailing the story of Earl Crawley. After receiving the video, I have since shared his story in several speaking engagements that I’ve had over the years. His story is a story of inspiration and hope. It’s a story that states no matter how humble your beginnings are in life, you can do some amazing things.
    As I was pondering on something to write about, it dawned on me that although I’ve spoken about Earl several times, I
  • Mr. Sonny Knows for July 10, 2024

    Mr. Sonny Knows for July 10, 2024
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  • Changing habits

    Changing habits
    When Sister Luna GlitterTits saw a bunch of ladies in drag and nun habits walking through a casino in Florida more than a decade ago, she felt like she had to ask them what they were doing. She had no idea that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an international order of queer nuns, would soon […]
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