Pivot Arts Festival offers reflection after a year of upheaval

Chicago Reader (Style) 5/11 9:00A Sheri Flanders

"Reimagining Utopia" focuses on multidisciplinary artists and visions of a better future. Recently, several articles appeared about the phenomenon of “Hygiene Theater”—the focus on largely ineffective...

Cheeseburger Salad Recipe

Sequins and Stripes 5/11 4:51A Liz

This recipe isn t rocket science and is probably something that you already make in your home! The bun-less burger is one of our favorites and we love to make a variation of this a lot. The Defined...

Live at the Goodman offers three views on loss and reinvention

Chicago Reader (Style) 5/11 4:45A Melissa Perry

Plays by Adam Rapp, Adrienne Kennedy, and Ike Holter make a livestream connection with audiences. Between a robust national vaccine effort and Broadway recently announcing its September reopening, the...

Objects of Fascination

Chicago Magazine 5/11 3:00A Lynette Smith

If you visit the Chicago History Museum, you will see only a fraction of its unparalleled collection. Among the hundreds of thousands of treasures carefully stashed away are these eight unique artifacts, each a window into a chapter of the city’s...

Chicago postrock misfits Monobody smooth out their frenzied style on Comma

Chicago Reader (Style) 5/11 1:00A Leor Galil

Instrumental five-piece Monobody have the tenacity and vision to add to Chicago’s storied postrock legacy, and they proved it with 2018’s Raytracing, which borrowed its frenzied energy from punk and...

E. Faye Butler brings the Goods to Artemisia

Chicago Reader (Style) 5/10 10:40A Kaylen Ralph

Chicago musical theater star E. Faye Butler helms an online sci-fi feminist drama. Sometimes, we just don't give ourselves the space. That's something E. Faye Butler, in her new capacity as the board...

Code of the Freaks highlights Hollywood’s ableism

Chicago Reader (Style) 5/10 10:25A Colleen Morrissey

The Chicago-made documentary tells stories of disability that aren’t shown on the silver screen. "It's all the same movie," says writer Susan Nussbaum in the opening moments of the 2020 documentary...

Go on a hike with @black.people.outside

Chicago Reader (Style) 5/10 9:55A Camilla Forte

A south side couple carves out a digital safe space for POC interested in outdoor recreation. When Chevon Linear looked up at the sky as darkness descended over Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park in...

Overflow can’t be contained

Chicago Reader (Style) 5/10 9:25A Angela Burke

South Loop’s Overflow Coffee carries on the legacy of Vee-Jay Records. All of us have been witness to the slow erasure of a once legendary building. Often these structures appear to have been...

Nez draws from house, hip-hop, and R&B for his invigorating Midnight Music EP

Chicago Reader (Style) 5/10 1:00A Leor Galil

Chicago artist Nesbitt “Nez” Wesonga broke out in the early 2010s with hip-hop production crew Nez & Rio. By 2014, they’d helped make a bona fide hit album: Schoolboy Q’s Oxymoron features three Nez &...

Answering Your Questions About Equilibria CBD

Sequins and Stripes 5/8 3:09A Liz

We are all coming off a whirlwind of a year. Between navigating new normals, setting into social situations again and honestly kind of feeling insecure about how we move forward. It s been heavy and I...

Dinosaur Jr. kick out epic melodies, hooks, and noise on their best postreunion album

Chicago Reader (Style) 5/7 10:00A Brad Cohan

Dinosaur Jr.’s second act is a feel-good gift that keeps on giving. These unwavering indie-rock lifers seem to have access to a bottomless well of arena-ready solos and riffs, brain-sticking melodies,...

A mother of a week

Chicago Reader (Style) 5/7 8:15A Salem Collo-Julin

Upcoming events and recommendations from our listings coordinator Are you aware that the American tradition of Mother’s Day has origins in feminism and the peace movement? You can read up about the...

Indie film on ice

Chicago Reader (Style) 5/7 6:50A Kate Schmidt

Jer Sklar’s feature Tom of Your Life makes its local premiere in a one-week run at the newly reopened Music Box. Last March, Jeremy Sklar’s first feature film, Tom of Your Life, made its festival...

State Street, that great street?

Chicago Reader (Style) 5/7 5:05A Max Grinnell

What would it take to bring the grandeur back to the Loop? What makes a street great? Maybe you’re partial to a coffee shop with comfortable chairs next to a cannabis dispensary next to a courtyard...