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Nonprofit literary and visual arts group Chicago Publishers Resource Center is displaying an exhibit called “Flyerside: A Chicago Punk Scene Exhibition” that includes zines, posters, set lists, flyers, stickers, and other ephemera from the city’s storied punk past. You can visit “Flyerside” at CHI PRC during normal hours—Sundays from noon till 5 PM—or at the CHI PRC events complementing it. On Saturday, November 19, punk label HeWhoCorrupts Inc. hosts a “record and zine grab” from noon till 3 PM, and your $5 donation goes to CHI PRC and Young Chicago Authors; that same day Brown and Proud Press holds a POC zine workshop at 4 PM....

Chicago MC Neph gets so wrapped up in his verses that I wouldn’t be surprised if recording his performances is an afterthought for him. In fact, on the new EP More to Come, he gently pumps the brakes on his soporific flow partway through “Cadillac Palace,” asking how much time he has left—and even though Neph’s question fits into the rhyme scheme as well as the song’s laid-back mood, the impromptu vibe he creates suggests that he’s reacting in the moment, even if every other syllable was planned out....

A cozy, classy place with exposed-brick walls and wood floors and tables and a shiny zinc bar, HQ Howard Quintero appears at first glance to check the boxes for elevated comfort food, a trend that doesn’t yet appear to have worn out its welcome. The menu, however, is fairly straightforward, with entries like buffalo wings, loaded fries, airline chicken, and meat loaf. They’re gussied up just a touch—roasted red pepper and walnuts in the mac ‘n’ cheese, kale chips to go with the beer-braised short ribs and horseradish-garlic mashed potatoes, onion-date jam on the pot roast sandwich—but nothing to scare off an unadventurous diner....

Vamos make the kind of slaphappy, feral rock ’n’ roll that’s got a tectonic power, which is why in 2015 local music site cum label Midwest Action asked front man Ryan Murphy which building he’d want to destroy with his band’s sound. (Murphy’s answer: “Trump Tower or the DMV.”) It’s all well and good to marvel at the band’s musical muscle, but they’re an impressive force in the local rock ecosystem because of how they move all that mass....

F In the Fade delves deeper into the protagonist’s grief than Head On ever dares. Akin shows only the aftermath of the blast, sticking with Katja as she rolls up to the police cordon in her car, makes a mad dash for the crime scene, and gets tackled by police. Later, when she learns that a man and a boy have been killed and the police ask her for a DNA sample, Katja howls and collapses, writhing on the floor....

Immersive holiday shows in Chicago usually mean Halloween fare—haunted houses lend themselves naturally to the form, after all. But Chicago Immersive makes its inaugural bow with a family-friendly Hanukkah show so ecumenical in appeal it even takes place in a Lutheran church basement. Part scavenger hunt, part history lesson, part time-traveling adventure, the show involves a search for a menorah that belonged to the family of Grace (Nicole Bloomsmith), a contemporary woman who has only photos (and the audience) to help her piece together the puzzle of what happened to the beloved artifact, which disappeared around the time her great-grandparents left Germany ahead of Hitler....

In October 2019, Manae Hammond hopped in a car and drove from Chicago to Akron, Ohio, with her friend Eric Christopher. They’d known each other for a month, and they were heading to the first show by their band Hospital Bracelet. It’d been Christopher’s acoustic solo project for three months, and would end up operating as a live band for just five more before the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to concerts indefinitely....

S helved to the left of Barack Obama and directly below a scowling Clint Eastwood sits a hand-painted mug bearing the image of collector Stephen M. Mullins. The 85-year-old is recognizable in mug form because of the bespectacled face and balding crown. A smaller, bathing-suit-clad version of Mullins perches on the figure’s right shoulder. The placard below the mug announces his title: Curator, American Toby Jug Museum. The white label is equal in size and grandeur to those identifying Obama and Eastwood, a hint at the lack of hierarchy found among the nearly 8,300 figural pieces in the Evanston-based collection....

I read Stars in My Crown as a boy sick in bed (it’s told by a boy sick in bed) years ago, and came across the movie on TV just in the last few months. The book by Joe David Brown was published in 1947, and the film by Jacques Tourneur was released three years later. I bet Harper Lee knew both works. I’ve got to think that a 24-year-old Harper Lee saw Stars in My Crown when it played the local movie house in Monroeville, Alabama....

By the time Muhammad Ali moved into his Chicago residence in the 60s, he’d already claimed the title as “The Greatest.” Born as Cassius Clay in 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky, boxing was introduced to Ali at a young age as a means to defend himself in retaliation of his stolen bicycle. However, after winning several bouts and titles, it was Ali that used boxing as a platform to defend the civil rights of people all over through his humanitarian efforts and activism....

This August, rapper and actor Mykele Deville dreamed about his dead grandmother. It was the night after her funeral in South Carolina, and he was asleep in the car with his family on their 11-hour drive back to Chicago. Surrounded by the cornfields of his great-grandmother’s property, a former plantation where slaves once picked cotton, Deville had been able to feel his grandmother’s presence. He remembered when he was 16 and she’d revealed to him that he wasn’t the only artist in the family: she told him that in the 1950s, she used to sneak out of her family’s home in South Carolina to sing at lounges late at night....

courtesy LUMA Shaker chairs on pegs Of all the religious sects in the world, there is probably none more American than the United Society of Believers, or Shakers, who combined mysticism and a utopian vision with Yankee ingenuity, talent for entrepreneurship and PR, and excellent design sense. The Loyola University Museum of Art is currently showing three exhibits of their art, music, furniture, and architecture, collectively known as “Shaker in Chicago,” the first major exhibit of Shaker art, architecture, and artifacts here....

February is packed with activity, both online and off. Here are some events and things to do that I didn’t get to mention in the last PSA. Hope to see you out there! Most evenings through February: Are there people in your house that you’d like to get away from for a few hours? FitzGerald’s in Berwyn is offering patrons the opportunity to rent their spaces for some limited-capacity “let’s go out” time....

This week, we’re featuring a recent poster by Jay Ryan imploring you to support local restaurants that are still doing pickup or delivery. Ryan just released the 18th volume in his Mistakes Book series, an annual hand-bound collection of misprinted posters—this year’s is calledTime Moves When You Do. The Reader is still accepting submissions of Fantasy Gig Posters to be featured in this column. Send us an original design or drawing!...

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the first big blockbuster of 2016, opens this Easter weekend, and a giant, sustained promotional push seems to guarantee that it will clean up at the box office. Having successfully revived the Superman franchise with Man of Steel (2013), director Zack Snyder turns his attention to the more recent superhero conflict between Superman and Batman. I have a big problem with movies that fictionalize actual events, because inevitably things are distorted to make them more dramatic....

Michael Gebert The Izakaya at Momotaro Like comrade Sula, whose review of Bucktown’s new Izakaya Mita went live last week, I’ve long had an interest in the idea of the izakaya, the Japanese bar with a menu of compatible drinking foods, though my divergent experiences often left me confused about what izakaya fare typically was. So when Momotaro’s main floor opened in October, I was eager to hear what reviewers would think of the food at its downstairs izakaya with a separate kitchen, set to open a week or two later....

We Charge Genocide wechargegenocide.org When the United Nations Committee Against Torture convened for its quadrennial hearings last November, the voices of Chicago activists were loud and clear. Several groups with local connections traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, to present evidence on police torture to UNCAT. Among them was We Charge Genocide, a volunteer-run grassroots organization that sent eight youth delegates to present evidence from its 2014 report “Police Violence Against Chicago’s Youth of Color....

If you’re an Instagram user, you’ve probably noticed a hashtag called #2017bestnine circulating in your feed during the past few weeks. It’s from the Top Nine app, first launched in 2015, on which users enter their Instagram handle into a field and an algorithm forms a collage of the nine most popular photos from their accounts in that calendar year; people then post the montage on their Instagram pages. In 2017 my top nine included five selfies, four more than in 2016; no selfies were in my top nine in 2015....

Q: I’m a 40-year-old guy with a 30-year-old girlfriend. We’ve been together a year, and I can see a future with her. But there are problems. This girl comes after two minutes of stimulation, be it manual, oral, or penile. As someone who takes pride in my foreplay/pussy-eating abilities, this is a bummer. She gets wet to the point where all friction is lost during PIV and my boners don’t last....

From Brianna Wellen’s introduction, “Losses and gains: Best of Chicago 2020”: Some business to get out of the way: the reader poll results were determined by you, the readers! If you’re angry about the results, you only have yourselves to blame! Let this be a reminder to keep a close eye on when voting begins next year so you can campaign for your favorites to get the top spot. Or better yet, share your own losses and gains on social media and tag us @Chicago_Reader with the hashtags #bestofchi and #BoC2020....