I know there’s never really a good time to say I told you so. So, he knows a thing or two about dealing with epidemics. Ehrman’s larger point is that we’d be in better shape to battle this disease if we hadn’t been dismantling our public health system going back to the Reagan years of the 1980s. And he says we should immediately undo those cuts by hiring more public scientists, nurses, doctors, social workers, and so forth....
A few weeks ago I called upon a well-known and outspoken chef for some expertise I needed for a story. But this chef wanted to talk about something else. The chef had just come from lunch at one of the celebrated new restaurants launched by a certain large and ever-spawning restaurant group, and before that dinner at a sprawling spinoff from another very prominent local group in town. “I hate what they’ve done to this industry!...
The future of hip-hop is here, and it’s poppy as hell. Two of the biggest names in the game these days are rappers who frequently lean into the sweet and sensitive side of the genre: Post Malone and Swae Lee. Post Malone is the tattooed face of hypermelodic sad-boy pop rap, who’s gotten nearly as much attention for his goofy, trashy sense of style as he did for his buttery 2017 breakthrough smash, “Rockstar....
I was honored to appear with Esther Perel at the Orpheum Theater in Vancouver, BC, a few weeks ago to discuss her new book, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity. Questions were submitted on cards before the show—some for me, some for Esther, some for both of us—and we got to as many as we could during the event. Here are some of the questions (mostly for me) that we didn’t get to....
Hearing noises when nobody is around can be disturbing. However, this may be a sign of clairaudience. A clairaudient hears messages from spirit guides, angels, or the dead, receiving assistance from the spirit world. In this post, I’ll explain what it means to possess this ability: how to tell if you have the talent, distinguishing clairaudience from mental illness, associated psychic abilities, and finding advisors. Click here to speak with a clairaudient online....
About halfway through the approximately three-hour-long epic Avengers: Endgame, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) sums up the movie with a quick aside: “The only thing that is permanent in life is impermanence.” At first it seems like a throwaway line, tucked into a comedic ramble about Thor’s ex-girlfriend, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). But no second of a meticulously sculpted cinematic event like Endgame forsakes meaning. On the contrary, a film that should feel overlong and overstuffed rings purposeful, weighted with existential truth even as it flashes before our eyes....
Whenever folks discuss the great guitarists of the British Invasion, names such as Eric Clapton, George Harrison, and Pete Townshend reliably come up, but one rocker always seems to get short shrift: Dave Davies of the Kinks. I’d argue that Davies is the most influential of them all. The Kinks tunes “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night” were the garage-band shots heard around the world—the simple but urgent riffage and lustful, sweaty teenage lyrics were clumsily copied in a million basements by 60s teens while the Beatles were still making jangly pop music and singing about holding hands....
After the uproar around Bill Burr‘s recent SNL monologue taking white women to task for their role in upholding institutional racism, a YouTube clip of Burr complaining about Michelle Obama in particular and First Ladies in general made the social media rounds. “When did First Ladies start acting like they got elected?” bellowed Burr. “To be the First Lady, that’s not a fucking job. Just standing there smiling and waving.”Maybe Burr should carve out about 100 minutes to watch the Neo-Futurists’ latest, 45 Plays for America’s First Ladies, to get a wider perspective on what the role entails....
If you’re going to spend an entire summer day in the sun at a music festival, why not pick the one that takes place right on the lakefront? The Oakwood Beach location of Mamby on the Beach sure is inviting, but scenic surroundings aside, the two-day music event boasts one of the ballsiest cross-genre bills of any midsize fest in town. “I look at it as a human mixtape,” Mamby talent buyer Matt Rucins recently told me, and the quality of the bill reflects that aesthetic....
To my mind, the last forward-thinking movements in psychedelic pop music occurred in the 80s and the early 90s. In the UK, bands in the shoegaze/dream-pop scene layered fuzzy, noisy wall-of-sound guitars with breathy, androgynous vocals, while in the U.S,. bands associated with the Paisley Underground took influence from 60s groups such as the Byrds and the Beau Brummels—often filtered through the intensity of punk. Around the same time, a similar love of pure yet avant-garde 60s pop became evident among a crop of musicians in New Zealand who favored the stripped-down DIY efficiency of the Velvet Underground....
One summer night during the mid-1980s, Mayor Harold Washington visited the Taste Entertainment Center in the heart of Englewood. He walked into the kitchen, put on an apron, and offered some culinary advice to the staff. Even more remarkable is that Taste has survived the ups and downs that have hit Englewood for four decades. On Saturday, May 5, a Taste reunion featuring house music legend Farley “Jackmaster” Funk and former staff could serve as an introduction to some and a reminder for the old heads....
Zach Klein/Wikimedia Commons The comedian in his younger years (2005, to be precise) Patton Oswalt’s second memoir, his follow-up to 2011’s Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, is his recounting of the period between 1995 and ’99, when he was an up-and-coming comic in Los Angeles who went to the movies almost every night. Enabled by living in close proximity to the legendary New Beverly Cinema, he set out to see as many movies as possible that he found listed in The Film Noir Encyclopedia, The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, and Danny Peary’s three volumes of Cult Movies....
Courtesy of Hometapes Pattern Is Movement Pattern Is Movement have long held a place in my heart (ever since my friend Dan Levine introduced me to the Philadelphia indie-rock band seven years ago) and tomorrow night they return to Chicago one last time during a monthlong farewell tour. I remember Pattern Is Movement were called “lumberjack rock” when I first heard them, a term that doesn’t really describe the tone of their delicate, minimal songs as much as it focuses on what the band members look like: singer-keyboardist Andrew Thiboldeaux and drummer Chris Ward have an affinity for woodsman-type flannel, sport beards that suggest they spend a lot of time in a forest (though Thiboldeaux shed his for the above press photo), and look like they could make a living chopping down trees....
Polish death-metal legends Vader have seen many major world changes in their 35 years as a band, some of which have directly impacted their career. Following the fall of the Iron Curtain in the early 90s, for instance, they became the first Polish death-metal band to sign a record contract with a Western label. They’ve since been reliably prolific, bringing a sense of martial discipline to every track they lay down....
Leor Galil, Reader staff writer Cross Record, Be Good Once the snow finally started falling this winter, I had the sudden desire to throw on this LP by former Chicagoan Emily Cross. These enchanting, occasionally foreboding folk and drone tracks evoke what’s magical about a cold winter night, and since the season has only just started, I figure they’ll be a good way to keep my spirits high through the low temperatures....
And then there were three. Beijing-based Ofo, one of the four vendors participating in Chicago’s far-south-side pilot of dockless bike-share (“DoBi”) technology, is taking its marbles and going home. The Beijing-based company, which deployed 50 wheel-lock-only cycles when the test launched in early May, announced today that it is dropping out because the city hasn’t raised the cap for those kind of bikes. On June 29 the Chicago Department of Transportation changed the DoBi permitting guidelines to allow companies to release 350 “lock-to” cycles, which have built-in cable locks or U-locks for securing them to a fixed object....
Leonard C. Goodman is a Chicago criminal defense attorney and co-owner of the newly independent Reader. The problem for the victims is that a deep dive into the Epstein-Maxwell network would implicate not just powerful men like Bill Clinton, who took at least 26 trips on Epstein’s private jet—nicknamed the Lolita Express—but also untouchable U.S. intelligence officials like Michael Hayden, who was CIA director in 2007 when Acosta was told to “leave [Epstein] alone....
Friday, July 19 1:00-1:40 AACM Great Black Music EnsembleGreen Stage 1:45-2:25 MikeRed Stage 2:30-3:15 Standing on the CornerGreen Stage 2:45-3:30 Rico NastyBlue Stage 3:20-4:10 ValeeRed Stage 4:00-4:45 GrapetoothBlue Stage 4:15-5:10 Sky FerreiraGreen Stage 5:15-6:10 Earl SweatshirtRed Stage 5:15-6:00 Julia HolterBlue Stage 6:15-7:15 Pusha-TGreen Stage 6:30-7:15 Soccer MommyBlue Stage 7:25-8:25 Mavis StaplesRed Stage 7:45-8:30 LowBlue Stage 8:30-9:50 HaimGreen Stage Saturday, July 20 1:00-1:40 Lala LalaGreen Stage 1:45-2:25 Ric WilsonRed Stage...
“Streetwear in Chicago” evokes such names as Leaders 1354, Jugrnaut, Joe Freshgoods of Fat Tiger Workshop, and Virgil Abloh. These brands and individuals carry the torch internationally for Chicago streetwear, but while the titans are making their waves, there is a bubbling undercurrent of designers whose creative work brings definition to the city’s fashion scene. It is in that undercurrent that Amanda Harth, founder of the online fashion resource Runwayaddicts, stumbled upon the inspiration for the Museum of Streetwear....
Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Tuesday, November 8, 2016. Happy Election Day, and remember to vote! Report: Nearly a quarter of Illinois teachers miss more than ten school days a year Approximately 23.5 percent of public school teachers in Illinois were absent for more than ten days of the school year, according to the Illinois Report Card, and according to research used by the U.S. Department of Education, absenteeism at that rate negatively affects student performance....
