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Coco, the new children’s animation from Pixar/Disney, screened for Chicago critics Tuesday afternoon, but the Chicago Reader wasn’t there. We boycotted the screening in solidarity with the Los Angeles Times, which has been barred from press previews in retaliation for its news coverage of Disney’s business dealings with the city of Anaheim, home of the theme parks Disneyland and Disneyland California Adventure as well as the lucrative Disneyland Resort. Last Friday, the Times noted in its holiday movie preview that “Walt Disney Co....

Prop Thtr will probably never produce Stephen Sondheim’s Follies. Yet somehow, the news earlier this month that they will be moving out of their longtime two-venue space in Avondale by October made me envision Carlotta the aging showgirl, crooning “good times and bum times, I’ve seen them all. And, my dear, I’m still here.” So what happened? COVID. Prior to the COVID shutdown, Lilley was working on Diary of an Erotic Life, a devised piece derived from proto-Expressionist Frank Wedekind’s writings, including his famous “Lulu” plays....

On Friday, Mayor Lightfoot held a press conference to pat herself on the back for Chicago’s graduation rate. So in honor of Labor Day, allow me to give credit to the people who actually had something to do with whatever successes CPS can claim—the teachers, principals, teachers’ aides, coaches, clerks, lunchroom supervisors, janitors, and anyone else who actually, you know, does the labor. When it comes to school myths in Chicago, the narrative is positively biblical, taken straight from the Book of Genesis....

These days, record nerds seem keen to categorize the sounds of the past in newly minted genres such as “proto-metal,” “acid folk,” and “pastoral prog.” The terminally unhip Genesis—and especially their groundbreaking 1973 classic, Selling England by the Pound—might fit into any of these categories. No matter how anyone describes it, the album is one of the finest, most sophisticated rock records of that decade, with the heaviest vibes; I still find myself exploring its many layers far more often than I give the same treatment to Dark Side of the Moon or Who’s Next....

On their bruising second album, Sunwatchers II (Trouble in Mind), New York instrumental quartet Sunwatchers further refine their flinty collision of scorching free jazz and numbing proto-punk. Yet while the combo’s ethos is guided by influences such as the Stooges blowout “LA Blues” and the acidic skronk of guitarist Sonny Sharrock, there’s more to their game than pure aggression. Like a needling knottiness to the licks of Jim McHugh, who boogies down on the opening track, “Nose Beers,” with an electric phin—a Thai lute—suggesting a distortion-curdled analogue to the riffing of Saharan rockers Tinariwen....

Rich Hein/Sun-Times Media Nice building—but it’s no toilet paper. On behalf of all the movers and shakers in this town, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the public school children of Chicago for their generosity in making this a banner year for Willis Tower and other downtown properties. In particular, I’m thanking the kiddies for the millions in property tax dollars that would have otherwise gone to the schools but instead went to help pay for refurbishing Willis Tower as part of the deal in which United Airlines moved its headquarters there....

Goodman Theatre has been social-consciousness central this spring. Intentionally or not, the most recent shows at its two spaces form an American diptych, exploring the seductions of capitalism and the responsibilities of communities in the second half of the 20th century. Soups doesn’t have anything like Sign‘s verbal or dramatic sophistication. A lot of Gilman’s strategies are standard issue for this kind of earnest, issues-oriented play, quite literally set around a kitchen table....

Playwright Sarah Ruhl is on the record as not loving the words “quirky” or “whimsical” applied to her brand of reflective, heady, poetic quasi-comedy. I can’t imagine she loves the adjective “twee” either, and yet there’s no getting around how prominently it hangs over the arty, wry proceedings of this frequently staged 2002 “contemporary farce,” which originally debuted at Evanston’s Piven Theatre. Tilly (Alys Dickerson), a chronically melancholy bank teller, is sent by her employer to a wacky, unspecified Euro-accented psychotherapist (Martin Diaz-Valdes) to treat her aloof, not-quite-depressed condition....

But while he’d never cooked with pig’s tail before, DiBattista says it wasn’t that far outside his comfort zone. His first thought was to make a ragu, but he wanted to “showcase the form of the tail.” He decided instead to braise the tails, then cook them on Campagnola’s wood-burning grill. He was inspired by the barbecue of the Caribbean, where pig’s tail is popular, but made the barbecue sauce using a balsamic vinegar reduction and served the meat with polenta to give the dish an Italian spin....

Many of the early reports and responses to the mass-casualty shooting at Orlando’s Pulse Nightclub decry the tragedy as one fueled by anti-LGBTQ hate, or as murders committed by an ISIS sympathizer. With the news that the perpetrator reportedly attended the club on several occasions, and even may have used gay dating apps, internalized fear and hatred of LGBTQ people may even come into the fore. Indeed, these issues aren’t mutually exclusive and are important areas of focus while trying to make sense of a senseless crime....

Gwendolyn Zabicki began thinking up the exhibition “Fête Galante” while in Paris in 2016 after seeing Antoine Watteau’s Pilgrimage to Cythera at the Louvre. The paintings in that part of the museum are “joyful and beautiful and the first group of paintings in the museum that felt really modern to me,” says Zabicki. After visiting the museum, she began to read up on the artist Watteau and the fête galante. In Pilgrimage to Cythera, figures dressed in lavish clothing are celebrating love, as many cupids fly around the sky, and others are seen flirting with one another in the grass....

Q: I’ve been married to my husband for two years. Five months into our relationship (before we got married), he confessed that he was an adult baby. I was so grossed out, I was literally ill. (Why would this great guy want to be like this?) I told him he would have to choose: diapers or me. He chose me. I believed him and married him. Shortly before the birth of our child, I found out that he’d been looking at diaper porn online....

Aldertrack aldertrack.com, @aldertrack We all know how it goes around here: what the mayor wants, the City Council rubber-stamps. But there really is more to the story, and Aldertrack reports on its many twists, turns, and central characters. Cofounder Jimm Dispensa launched the first version of the site in 2007 as a way of following the zaniness of ward races around the city. (Last month, Dispensa became 11th Ward alderman Patrick Daley Thompson’s chief of staff....

The first-ever Chicago Black Restaurant Week, featuring African-American-owned restaurants in Chicago and the suburbs, is happening now through February 13. Unlike the fixed-price menus of Chicago Restaurant Week—which just wrapped up last Thursday, three days before CBRW began—this one offers discounted menu items at participating spots. The goal, according to the event’s website, is to introduce people to restaurants owned by African-Americans. Founder Lauran Smith, a social media specialist, told the hosts of Windy City Live last week that she’s hoping to create more recognition for black-owned eateries....

Is America catching up to Craig Baldwin? Back in 1991, the San Francisco filmmaker took the underground cinema by storm with his collage narrative Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America, which repurposed footage from industrial films, educational films, cartoons, and low-budget sci-fi movies to present an alternate history of the 20th century in which humanity is secretly controlled by space aliens operating from a subterranean base at the south pole. A quarter century later, right-wing conspiracy theories circle the republic like hungry sharks: the Sandy Hook shootings were faked, Barack Obama was a secret Muslim, Hilary Clinton and other prominent Democrats ran a human trafficking operation from a Washington pizza parlor....

Michael Gebert Founder Andrew Lutsey addresses visitors at Local Foods. Chicago food media went gaga when the news broke that David Chang would be doing a pop-up of his New York hipster Chinese chain Momofuku at the Publican after the James Beard Foundation Awards are held here. I’m as happy about it as the next person, but something that will have a considerably greater and longer-lasting impact on our food scene happened on Wednesday and, while it drew a nice crowd of farmers and restaurateurs, I was one of only a few food mediaoids to turn out for it....

Richard A. Chapman / Sun-Times Challenger Tim Meegan (left) says 33rd Ward alderman Deb Mell (far right) used dirty tricks to come out ahead on Election Day. The Logan Square restaurant Ceviche may not look like a hub of political controversy, but that’s just what it was on election day, according to 33rd Ward aldermanic candidate Tim Meegan, who currently stands just 13 votes away from a runoff in the ward....

A cool new record label in Chicago? Gossip Wolf says yes, please! A few months ago, punk rocker Jamie Girlsville (who grew up in Naperville) moved back to Chicago from San Francisco, where she used to run the rad label Show and Tell, which released tunes from the likes of John Dwyer’s pre-Thee Oh Sees band Coachwhips and garage rockers the Hipshakes. Her new imprint, Girlsville, launches with a slew of rad projects, including a tape from 90s New York punks the Prissteens and a compilation called Stupid Punk Boy with Coachwhips, Julia Cafritz’s post-Pussy Galore/pre-Free Kitten group STP, and mid-90s UK riot grrrls Golden Starlet....

Grease belongs to the ages. Well, it obviously doesn’t belong to Jim Jacobs and the late Warren Casey, who wrote and composed the show that debuted at Chicago’s old Kingston Mines in 1971. Fox is airing a live performance of Grease on January 31, and Sunday’s New York Times carried a story on the show that didn’t bother to mention either of its creators. Something comparable would be a story about a live production of Oklahoma!...

Republicans will stop at nothing to stop Donald Trump. They’ve pulled a maneuver out of their playbook they haven’t used in years. It’s like a Superbowl quarterback facing fourth and 20 at his own 5-yard-line and scratching the Statue of Liberty play into the dirt. “This is the party of Lincoln,” said House speaker Paul Ryan. “We believe all people are created equal in the eyes of God.” “This is the party of Abraham Lincoln....