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Until I found a comb-bound catalog of “Tricks gathered from the four corners of the World” in a second-­hand store in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 2014, I didn’t have much clue about the history of Chicago magic—much less know that the city had pioneered its own style. Printed in 1940 by the National Magic Company (once located downtown in the Palmer House), the tattered volume features whimsical, colorful illustrations of vintage tricks on its cover (a rabbit out of a box, Chinese linking rings, et cetera)....

The all-purpose utility of Cafe Marie-Jeanne, on the suddenly restaurant-thick intersection of California and Augusta, is what makes it the most attractive among the newer venues to colonize this once desolate Humboldt Park junction. Pioneered by the California Clipper, a surge of restaurants and bars took a foothold here with the great Rootstock and, in more recent times, the Haywood Tavern, Spinning J Bakery and Soda Fountain, and Hogsalt Hospitality’s coffee shop, C....

Chicago rapper Phil G clearly loves hip-hop’s golden age; his proclivity for skeletal percussion that bisects the air every time a drum beat kicks in and the stylistic elements that have flavored his oeuvre show a predilection for the types of bygone soul and jazz that served as the base for hip-hop’s teenage years. Recently, this affection showed up in the form of Chuck D’s booming voice, courtesy of Public Enemy’s “Shut ’Em Down” (off Apocalypse 91 ....

Whether Augie March turns out to be the hero of his own play, or whether that station is held by the ensemble of strong-willed eccentrics around him, David Auburn’s new stage adaptation of Saul Bellow’s classic The Adventures of Augie March hasn’t quite decided. But in Charles Newell’s production for Court Theatre, he’s on a hugely entertaining and sometimes moving journey. What it lacks in narrative arc, it more than makes up for in heart, wit, and poetry....

If there’s still anyone out there who doubts that Chicago’s a divided city, I urge you to compare and contrast two mayoral endorsement sessions that happened to take place on the same day last week—one at the Tribune‘s downtown office, the other at a west-side church. They distributed green and red pieces of paper for audience members to wave when they agreed (green) or disagreed (red) with what the mayoral candidate was saying....

Brian Enyart spent the first 14 years of his career quietly climbing the ladder in Rick Bayless’s kitchens, rising to chef de cuisine at Topolobampo—easily the most rarefied and progressive restaurant in the Bayless empire—before stepping away in 2011. There were a few consulting gigs and a stint at a Saint Louis Mexican restaurant, but now he’s back, along with former Topolobampo pastry chef (and wife) Jennifer Jones, at Logan Square’s Dos Urban Cantina....

“August Wilson definitely influenced my storytelling,” Eugene Lee remarks to dramaturg Reginald Edmund in the program notes for Lee’s East Texas Hot Links, running now at Writers Theatre. “He told me once that, ‘It’s alright to let them talk.’” Parson has a long history with East Texas Hot Links. He directed the celebrated 1995 Chicago premiere—mounted by a now-lost black company, Onyx Theatre Ensemble—and then an equally well-received 1998 remount. In 2014 Sun-Times critic Hedy Weiss reported that Parson was working on reviving Onyx with still another production of the play....

A modest but significant burst in new, noteworthy Thai restaurants lit up Chicago over the last year and a half, with small, independent operators offering relatively uncompromising food compared to the oversweetened, dumbed-down Ameri-Thai standards much of the city is used to. They’re not pioneers. They’re walking in the footsteps of the folks behind Spoon, Aroy Thai, and Andy’s Thai Kitchen, among others. In some cases they’re veterans of those kitchens....

Chicago playwright Amy Crider creates a tidy Proustian universe in this evening-length monologue, delivered by a 75-year-old small-town Hoosier named Charlie Johnson. He appears before us because he once dipped a madeleine in his coffee, whereupon his uppity daughter-in-law Patricia, witnessing this seemingly inconsequential act, promptly offered a condescending minilecture on Remembrance of Things Past. Determined to prove he’s no rube (or at least less of one than Patricia suspects), he sets out to read all seven volumes, but in short order gets sucked into his own search for lost time when the taste of cornmeal mush (his madeleine, as it were) evokes consequential memories of his rural Indiana boyhood....

“If we stay silent, it will be the end of us,” Mdou Moctar sings in French on the title track of his new album, Afrique Victime (Matador). If there’s one thing you can say for sure about Moctar, it’s that he’s not silent. The Nigerien guitarist keeps one hand on the tradition of Saharan Tuareg blues that Tinariwen made internationally famous and runs the other frantically over the fretboard of psychedelic rock....

Today through Friday, I’m counting down my 40 favorite albums of 2017. The usual caveat applies: I love all this music, but you should take my rankings with a grain of salt. And please bear in mind that I’m not trying to be definitive. 34. Arto Lindsay, Cuidado Madame (Northern Spy) Arto Lindsay has spent decades making art-pop that fuses koanlike poetry with the sophisticated Latin pop he grew up hearing while living in Brazil with his missionary parents....

The rise of house music is a large chapter in Chicago’s story, yet Revolution Chicago’s retelling makes the genre an uncompelling sidenote. Despite no support from his father and skepticism from his mother, Mickey “Mixin’” Oliver pursues a career DJing house music, eventually landing a gig at then-failing WBMX. As Mickey rises in prominence and WBMX rises in ratings, audience members are constantly reminded of the current state of house music and its influence on Chicagoans and folks around the world instead of being shown it through the story and action....

Chicago saxophonist Greg Ward is one of the most versatile jazz musicians of his generation, with a deep-seated curiosity that drives him to push himself into new territory. Through decades of study, the 34-year-old Peoria native has immersed himself in the jazz canon, particularly music that arose in the wake of his first great hero, bebop pioneer Charlie Parker. So it’s odd that it wasn’t till last year that Ward first heard the classic 1963 Charles Mingus album The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady—the inspiration for his new album, Touch My Beloved’s Thought (Greenleaf)....

Every year since 1981, FitzGerald’s American Music Festival has celebrated the Fourth of July with a great lineup of roots music, and the 38th edition is no exception: it has plenty of highlights on its four days on three stages (the club, the smaller SideBar, and a tent outside). Chicagoan Robbie Fulks rolls in with country guitar wizard Redd Volkaert (July 3, 6:30 PM, tent), who joined Merle Haggard’s band in 1997 as a successor to the great Roy Nichols....

Few records from 2017 knocked me out like The Book of Transfigurations (Songlines), the second album from husband-and-wife group Dálava. Helmed by singer Julia Ulehla and guitarist Aram Bajakian, the project surveys the traditional Moravian folk songs collected by Ulehla’s great-grandfather Vladimir Ulehla, a biologist by trade who spent much of his life documenting music in the area around his native Strázince. The couple, who started their duo in New York and currently reside in Vancouver, are joined on the album by a slew of jazz musicians, including cellist Peggy Lee, drummer Dylan van der Schyff, and keyboardist Tyson Naylor, who help them transform the songs in a rich, visceral array of settings that move between art rock, folk, and jazz while honoring the eastern-European essence of the source material....

This story is part of a package on homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Click here to read the accompanying piece. The homeless people who I know have not practiced social distancing, have continued to smoke snipes (other people’s cigarette butts found on the streets), do not regularly wash their hands, and have demonstrated a cavalier attitude about health concerns. They claim that they’ve built up their immune systems because of everyday exposure to the difficult conditions affecting their lives....

Natalie Vu will work to find a snack that’s right for you. Vu’s career as a snackist was launched three years ago in San Jose where she worked as a server in a restaurant and at a milk tea shop. Trying to bolster her tips, she bought rice paper at the market, seasoned it with chili oil in her own kitchen, and sold it to friends. That’s contrary to the usual snack cycle, which she says slows during the summer when salons are at their busiest....

A War, the third dramatic feature from Danish writer-director Tobias Lindholm, has been widely touted as the final installment of a trilogy about “desperate men in small rooms.” In R (2010) the perpetually haunted Pilou Asbæk stars as a frightened young man trying to learn the ropes in prison; in A Hijacking (2012) he plays a crew member aboard a Danish ship seized by Somali pirates; and in A War he’s a Danish officer in Afghanistan who stands trial for a war crime....

French-Malian singer Aya Nakamura expresses an effortless but firm candor in her lyrics (she sings in French) that’s cleanly mirrored in her music. Her breakout single, 2018’s “Djadja,” was a relentless kiss-off; its unwavering dancehall beat and bubbling synth percussion provided the perfect backdrop to Nakamura’s exhausted yet ferocious vocals. This synchronicity permeates her third LP, Aya (Warner). On opener “Plus Jamais” she sings, “I gave you my heart, I’ll never do it again,” then follows that confession with a spacious arrangement of pitch-shifted vocals, a soft synth wail, and a tumbling beat....

The fall theater season includes several plays that incorporate narratives centered on violence against women and how they deal with that trauma. But how do these shows break away from using those stories in exploitative ways? Freelancer Kaylen Ralph (who writes frequently about feminist issues and the performing arts) and Reader theater and dance editor Kerry Reid discussed their experiences with a few of these productions. Reid: Yes. And I also thought, as I noted in the review, that the lip-synching helped embody the physical dissociation that people who have been through profound trauma like Dana’s talk about....