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Logan Square needs another cocktail bar like it needs yet another coffee shop. The neighborhood is already home to Billy Sunday, the Whistler, Lost Lake, Scofflaw, Mezcaleria Las Flores, and Best Intentions (not to mention all the restaurants with deep cocktail lists). Still, the folks behind Spilt Milk—a partnership between Footman Hospitality and the newly formed Equal Parts Hospitality, which consists of veteran bartenders Matty Eggleston, Tony Selna, and Jason Turley—took a gamble that the neighborhood hadn’t yet reached its saturation point....

Gossip Wolf has been fond of Chicago bubblegum-pop sweethearts the Lemons for almost as long as they’ve been a band, so it’s a pleasure to see their audience grow. Late last week a handful of celebrities “picked up” copies of the band’s brand-new debut LP, Hello, We’re the Lemons, at Logan Square shop Bric-a-Brac: among the folks posing with copies of the album on Instagram were Malin Akerman (Watchmen, Childrens Hospital), Kate Micucci (Garfunkel and Oates), Orlando Bloom (you know, Legolas), and mumble­core auteur Joe Swanberg (brother of the Lemons’ James Swanberg, who’s also the main man of Today’s Hits)....

A three-foot-deep rainbow-colored ball pit at the entrance to a show was a first for me—I had no idea that by the end of the night I’d end up juggling them, circled by spectators. I was at Renaissance One, a Pride-themed showcase put on by Party Noire at the Promontory on Thursday, June 27, and that kind of spontaneity animated the night. The glowing dance floor changed colors underfoot, glitter-filled beach balls bounced around the room, and iridescent streamers fluttered from the ceiling....

As we reflect on the year so far and think forward to November, political art has never been more important. The Latinx community, which has a long history of “artivism,” has brought power to racial struggles for decades and helped unite Chicago and capture the fervent energy this summer. In a culturally rich and diverse but segregated city, Latinx artivism shows there is power in community, especially in the midst of a pandemic that disproportionately hits Black and Brown Chicagoans the worst....

On November 25, less than 24 hours after the Chicago Police Department belatedly released a dashcam recording of officer Jason Van Dyke shooting and killing Laquan McDonald, local rapper Ty Money dropped “United Center,” whose video consists exclusively of edited footage from that recording. The song’s instrumental track accompanies its solemn piano melody with sizzling guitars and muffled, ominous bass that booms like an underground explosives test, and in his lyrics Money mulls over the systemic injustices that afflict Chicago’s black community and make the city’s racial divide feel like the Grand Canyon....

A trip to the Hoosier State via I-90 begins rather inauspiciously. The Chicago Skyway separates the city from northwest Indiana, and as motorists glide over the toll road, they’re greeted by monotonous blocks of homogenous houses, spindly smokestacks, and the Horseshoe Hammond Casino’s gaudy orange and pink sign, which juts out of the grey landscape like a puffed-up, preening peacock. In neighboring Gary, the highway runs past decrepit icons like the once mighty, now moldering Grand Central Station, a place that draws only ruin pornographers these days....

Q: I’m a 29-year-old straight woman in Pennsylvania. My question is to do with choking and consent. I’ve had two experiences in the past six months or so where someone has tried to choke me without my consent. The first time this happened, I coughed immediately but he tried multiple times during sex. I was caught so off guard that I didn’t say anything until the next morning. I told him I wasn’t OK with that and that it was too much....

Tara Stamps and Jaylin McClinton are both politically active black Chicago Democrats from communities that are predominantly low-income and racially segregated. But they’re in different camps as the Illinois presidential primary approaches. The 18 congressional districts in Illinois are apportioned from four to nine delegates apiece by the Democratic Party. The greater the population in a district and the larger its Democratic vote in recent elections, the more delegates it’s allotted....

Given how excited the folks in Mucca Pazza always seem to be about their own deranged marching band, Gossip Wolf is hardly shocked that they’d have a soft spot for kids who need help to play in a school band! Founding member and cheerleader Sharon Lanza reached out about the Horace Mann Marching Mustangs, who she calls “an amazingly spirited and disciplined south-side elementary school band” (they collaborated with Mucca Pazza in September)....

On a cold January evening, Aurora lugged a box containing a chrome pole and wooden base into the Empty Bottle. Her eyelids were painted with silver glitter and she wore a white hoodie with a bedazzled script that read “Money makes me cum.” The original complaint also alleges that dancers paid “house fees” to work and were required to share their tips with “managers and with non-service employees or agents of the club,” like the DJ, in-house makeup artist, and “house mom,” who provided food and sometimes toiletries in the locker room....

On March 4, 1968, then-FBI director J. Edgar Hoover described in a memo his department’s renewed focus on hindering the efforts of various black-led political organizations. Hoover wrote how he feared the rise of a black “messiah” who “could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement.” Tellingly, the memo was sent exactly one month before the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., whom Hoover describes as “a very real contender for the position....

When I stepped off the Loyola el station in the summer of 1992, it was oh so very hot. I got my map out and explained my predicament. She laid out the map on the only surface in the store that appeared to be clear of any printed material and deftly drew a series of directional arrows that would lead me to the hostel. She also informed me that there was no better food than Chicago diner food and drew a star around Standee’s on Granville Avenue and said, “It’s open all the time....

Q: I’m a 27-year-old male adult baby/diaper lover (AB/DL). I’ve been in the closet about my fetish basically since puberty. As a consequence, I never dated or became romantically involved. I thought if I buried my kink with enough shame, it would go away and I would somehow turn normal. It obviously didn’t work, and for the past year, I’ve been trying to find healthy ways to integrate this into my life....

Q: My wife got drunk at a vacation house we rented with a bunch of friends and cheated on me with my best friend in the hot tub. They didn’t have sex but they did other things. I wasn’t there but there were eight other people in the hot tub and the jets were on so no one else saw what was going on “under the water.” My wife told me about it afterward and I was hurt but also kind of excited....

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story profiles one of the most glamorous stars of Hollywood’s golden age, but it’s not your usual silver-screen documentary. Drawing on several books (most notably Hedy’s Folly by science writer Richard Rhodes), writer-director Alexandra Dean moves past Lamarr’s movie career in the 1930s and ’40s to explore her little-known sideline as an inventor, one whose patented device for radio “frequency hopping,” developed to guide torpedoes during World War II, has become a building block of modern wireless technology....

On their latest album, the awkwardly titled 0-100 A the Speed of the Present (Hausu Mountain), this wonderfully squirmy improv-centric duo from Kent, Ohio, continue to collide acoustic and electronic—and silly and serious—in beguiling, bizarre ways. The bulk of their sound field is occupied by the gurgling, liquid electronics of Pat Modugno: steadily shifting combinations of queasy synth washes, space-age noodling, electronic drum sounds that seem sampled from a child’s toy, and atmospheric transmissions that suggest a leisurely swim through heavy cream....

It’s no surprise that COVID-19 has disrupted our typical dating routines. Forced into isolation with roommates or partners, or on our own, cruising for a fling just isn’t as easy (or recommended) as it once was. On top of casual dating, maintaining nonmonogamous relationships presents challenges for those trying to proceed with their romantic lives. For many folks, their partnerships are evolving day by day as social distancing shifts to the new normal and shelter-in-place circumstances disrupt poly formations....

On Saturday, August 27, local good-vibes label Eye Vybe Records releases Nalumbanet, a new cassette from the duo Simulation, aka Whitney Johnson of Matchess (“Best transcendental deep-space synth trip” in the Reader‘s 2015 Best of Chicago issue) and Laura “Lulu” Callier of Gel Set (who recently relocated to LA). According to their Bandcamp page, Simulation resulted from a “paranormal visitation” Johnson and Callier had in Forsyth, Montana, during a tour together—maybe that’s why Nalumbanet sounds like some of the spookiest Friday the 13th dub ever recorded?...

Open since last December, Grant Park’s skate park hosted its first nationally broadcast event earlier this month when the Dew Tour came to town. Skateboarders and BMX bikers from across the U.S.—among them Alec Majerus of Rochester, Minnesota; Curren Caples of Ventura, California; and even Chicagoans like Chaz Ortiz—competed for medals in BMX Street, BMX Streetstyle, Skate Street, and Skate Streetstyle. Here’s a collection of photos from the electrifying event....

O n a February night at the Studio Movie Grill in Chatham, Chance the Rapper commands the stage. A large and rapt crowd has turned up at the Black History Month film festival operated by his nonprofit, Social Works. “I think it is important to shine a light on important stories,” Chance says. “There are a lot of opportunities that are afforded to certain people and thought of as just the way things are supposed to go....