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Michael Gebert Joe Woodel of Husky Hog Bar-B-Que A couple of months ago I wrote about the relocation of the only south-side African-American-style barbeque place on the white north side, Honey 1 Barbecue. (They’re still there; the 43rd Street location hasn’t opened yet.) Now here’s the reverse: a north-side-style barbecue joint cooking barbecue in a Southern Pride smoker (the same kind used at places like Smoque), in a style pretty much straight out of Tennessee, with southern sides from collard greens to fried green tomatoes—half a mile from U....

August Pullman, the ten-year-old boy at the center of Stephen Chbosky’s Wonder, is severely deformed: the bridge of his nose reaches to his forehead in a straight line, the corners of his eyes are pulled down in a perpetual sob, his cheeks are traced by scars, and withered ears peek out from under his long hair. One dreads to think what he might have looked like before the 27 plastic surgeries he mentions near the beginning of the film....

Growing up on the south side, writer and actress Lena Waithe, now 32, looked to four pillars of television: The Cosby Show, Martin, Living Single, and A Different World: to this day her Twitter handle, @HillmanGrad, is homage to the fictional college attended by Denise Huxtable, Whitley Gilbert, and Dwayne Wayne. Denise was originally supposed to be a straight, white woman. But after Waithe met with Ansari and cocreator Alan Yang, they decided to switch things up and base the character on her, in keeping with the show’s vision of portraying diverse points of view....

Baltimore experimental electronic duo Matmos have released a steady stream of albums over their 25 years, many of which feature guest artists, but on the new The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form they’ve brought in enough collaborators to fill a house party. They made the album in part from submissions by 99 musicians Matmos had invited to send virtually any sound recording of their choice, as long as it had a tempo of 99 beats per minute....

Schoolchildren are introduced to Shakespeare as literature, which might not be the best idea. I slogged through King Lear in college, and then again this summer on behalf of my book group. In the interim, I was riveted by Robert Falls’s 2006 production at the Goodman. Lines I don’t follow on the page I reread until I parsed them; onstage they tumbled by, revealed in the acting. As theater, King Lear surrendered its secrets....

Chicagoan Mike Walker has led Nature’s Neighbor for more than a decade, working with a revolving-door cast of musicians who’ve helped him realize his liquid indie-pop sound. But as much as the project is his brainchild, its new album, Otherside (Tai Duo Music), wouldn’t exist without longtime collaborator Terrill Mast. Early last April, Mast texted Walker from his home in Virginia about writing a song together, and despite Walker’s initial hesitance, the endeavor snowballed into a full-length record that demonstrates how far the two musicians’ intimate trust has taken them....

“Troubled Waters,” an eclectic package of films currently streaming on FilmStruck, collects eight crime, mystery, and thriller stories set (at least partially) on boats. We’ve scuttled three of them, leaving five to set sail for dark waters and on-screen squalls. Macao Josef von Sternerg attempted to re-create the ambience of his 1930s Paramount period for this 1952 RKO production; there’s no way of knowing whether he succeeded or not, because the film was recut by producer Howard Hughes, with additional scenes directed by Nicholas Ray....

There are so many intriguing elements to Ravenswood’s Band of Bohemia that it’s easy to see why this endlessly gestating project was one of the most anticipated openings of 2015. A pair of Alinea vets launch a “culinary brewhouse” in a former cookie factory hard by the Metra tracks. Tapping into the national craft beer fixation, they’ve decided their food should be paired to complement their house-brewed suds—not the other way around....

Published in 1947, Chicago Japanese-American Year Book takes the reader into a time capsule of an ethnic community feeling its way after the government of Japan had waged war against the United States. The U.S. government had responded by forcibly removing Japanese American citizens and aliens from the Pacific coast, where the majority lived, and consigning them to detention centers in remote areas. Sono was born in Omaha in 1919, the first of three children, and the family moved to the north side of Chicago in 1925....

The smell of menthol oil and the whine of traditional Thai instrumental music pierce the humid July air of the Cicero Stadium on fight night. Though it’s best known for hosting Chicago’s annual Golden Gloves boxing tournament, today the stadium has a new occupant: Muay Thai. The fighters entering the stadium aren’t who you might expect. Long gone are the days where bald men with goatees covered in barbed-wire tattoos brought their bar-brawling skills to the ring....

A few years ago, Reader contributor Jack Riedy did a deep dive on local DIY video-production crew New Trash, whose cheeky low-budget videos have made them a go-to for local artists looking to make a splash without breaking the bank. I thought of Riedy’s story on New Year’s Day, when Chicago rapper Monster Mike dropped a deliriously feverish New Trash video for the single “That.” Mike stars as the hero in a grindhouse homage; he’s on a mission to take down the cops who gouged out his right eye....

At the risk of sounding overly optimistic, let me start by pointing out the good news in the Board of Education’s recent four-to-three vote to keep cops in schools. I say the police department should pay. As the schools, always on the edge of bankruptcy, need every nickel they can get for classroom expenses. And, besides, until now, it was a slam dunk to get the City Council to approve more money for police....

Molasses is a collective of Chicago artists and activists who’ve come together to create space and platforms that create opportunity for local Black and Brown transgender and gender-nonconforming people. Through activities such as club nights, self-defense courses, and mutual aid initiatives, Molasses’ organizers aim to empower Black and Brown trans people and build community while providing tools that protect and save lives. For more information, visit www.molasseschicago.com. Bone Reader (Choya Webb): Molasses came to be because Zola saw many Black trans people not being visible in club space in Chicago, and more importantly, not taking care of themselves in terms of developing resources and arming themselves....

Instead of condemning lawmakers who refuse to make laws that might reduce the slaughter of schoolchildren, we critics of these legislators should put ourselves in their shoes. They have children of their own—they can imagine the anguish of parents who send their kids off in the morning with lunch bags and retrieve them in the afternoon in body bags. They have no more use than we do for the sullen, misfit killers; like the rest of us, they wish them gone....

As Fake Shore Drive has pointed out, a couple weeks ago Chief Keef announced he’d retired in a series of tweets. He explained that too many rappers “sound jus like me or saying shit like almighty would.” He’s got a point, at least as far new MCs are concerned. When Keef broke out in 2012, his take on the emerging drill sound—claustrophobic, apocalyptic, larger than life—became a blueprint almost immediately, though the mimics always missed something crucial....

Hys·te·ri·a /həˈstirēə,həˈsterēə/ : “a psychological disorder (not now regarded as a single definite condition) whose symptoms include conversion of psychological stress into physical symptoms (somatization), selective amnesia, shallow volatile emotions, and overdramatic or attention-seeking behavior. The term has a controversial history as it was formerly regarded as a disease-specific to women.” Aparicio says, “Unfortunately, I am one of the many victims of sexual harassment by a medical professional. [The] women’s health field is still mostly dominated by men, and the way things are being taught doesn’t differ much from teaching methods from the beginnings of obstetrics in the male world after being stolen from the woman’s hands....

Last year LA singer and composer Julia Holter underlined her stunning development as an art-pop auteur, matching her ethereal melodic sensibility with small-scale orchestrations on her live-in-the-studio album In the Same Room (Domino). The collection featured deft reinventions of songs from her previous two recordings, with new arrangements that completely refresh some of the material. With Holter’s focus on sophisticated pop songs it’s been easy to forget that she has a strong background in more experimental composition; she studied under Michael Pisaro at CalArts and possesses a sharp post-Cagean creativity she now mostly deploys in her collaborations with others, such as the suite of songs written by Chicagoan Alex Temple that she performed with Spektral Quartet a few years ago....

In a December episode of new WGN podcast The Cornerstore (hosted by journalist Tara Mahadevan and Young Chicago Authors artistic director Kevin Coval), Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins talks a little about his frustrations with Cinematic Music Group. He began working with the Brooklyn-based hip-hop indie in 2014, and it released his breakthrough mixtape, The Water[s], his 2015 follow-up, Wave[s], and his debut studio album, 2016’s The Healing Component—though by 2016 his relationship with the label had soured....

Saul Williams is a one-man multimedia juggernaut: he’s had successful careers as a screenwriter and actor, but he’s earned his greatest fame as a poet and MC. His new sixth studio album, Encrypted and Vulnerable (Pirates Blend), includes a track whose title aptly sums up his musical evolution: “Experiment.” Though Williams’s first major recording was a collaboration with KRS-One (“Oceans Within,” from the soundtrack to the 1998 film Slam, which Williams cowrote and starred in), he has largely bypassed the usual musical routes followed by hip-hop artists....

Q: I’m female, 26, and in an open marriage with a wonderful man. I have a recurring fear that he’ll get some other woman pregnant and she’ll refuse to abort. I trust him, but condoms break (or get holes poked in them). He inherited serious money from his father, and his father got “oops’d” into having three kids. I would immediately divorce my husband if this happened. (Yes, I’m an asshole, but my life plans have NEVER included children, step- or otherwise....