Vaslav Nijinsky’s The Rite of Spring might be the most successful failure of all time. Based on a pagan ritual sacrifice, the ballet asked dancers to assume inelegant postures and stomp their feet to Igor Stravinsky’s driving, discordant music. A near riot broke out at the 1913 Paris premiere, and Rite was forced to close … Read more
In her highly anticipated new book, Ling Ma, who teaches writing at the University of Chicago, has penned eight hilarious and haunting stories about the frequent dissatisfactions of contemporary life. Like her critically acclaimed first novel, 2018’s Severance — which balanced millennial coming-of-age workplace satire with full-on zombie apocalypse horror in a world stricken by a plague … Read more
Haymarket Books, the local font of socialist literature, is also, lo and behold, a publisher of Moscato-fueled existential poetry. Super Sad Black Girl (out December 13), the debut collection from 33-year-old Diamond Sharp, doesn’t reprove the investor class, the speculator class, or other gangsters of capitalism. Instead, it lays bare, in seriocomic fashion, the mental … Read more
“We have to preserve what we have of our Puerto Rican identity,” says Iraida Rodríguez-Negrón, a curator at Puerto Rico’s Museo de Arte de Ponce. That’s why her institution is loaning 21 important paintings to Chicago’s National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture for the exhibition Nostalgia for My Island, opening September 20. Chosen … Read more
Before Bela Lugosi, before Christopher Lee, before Frank Langella, Gary Oldman, Willem Dafoe, and legions of other actors doing their menacing best — before them all came cinema’s foundational bloodsucking ghoul portrayed by the aptly named Max Schreck (his surname means “fright” auf Deutsch) in Nosferatu. Now celebrating its 100th anniversary, the vampire classic was long ago … Read more
“With a lot of my stuff, whether it be sad or angry, there’s ultimately a sense of excitement and, hopefully, joy,” says the multilingual and multidisciplinary musician Nnamdï. “The ultimate intention is to be uplifting in some way.” His new album, Please Have a Seat (out October 7), excels, much as his previous four did, … Read more
Pastry chef Maya-Camille Broussard is having a big fall. Broussard, who was a finalist for outstanding baker at this year’s James Beard Awards, is set to open her Justice of the Pies pastry shop in Calumet Heights (1500 E. 87th St.) and is returning for a second season of Netflix’s Bake Squad. There’s more: Her … Read more
Late fall brings bald eagles to the banks of the Mississippi River in Wabasha, Minnesota, a five-hour drive from Chicago. “Not only do the river bluffs erupt into a sea of spectacular oranges, reds, and yellows, but viewing hits the next level as the leaves fall and eagles become clearly visible in the canopy,” says … Read more
He’s the man with the golden touch — when it comes to corn, that is. Since 2001, George Richardson and his family have dazzled Chicagoans with their intricate maize mazes, billed as the world’s largest, depicting everything from the Beatles to Illinois history. This year’s version at Richardson Farm (October weekend admission: $24 for adults; $18 for … Read more
In 1982, Art Johnston and Pepe Peña opened a little bar called Sidetrack in the North Side neighborhood of Northalsted (colloquially known then as Boystown). Sidetrack became a mecca of gay life in the city, as well as a hub for political action, as Johnston and Peña spent decades fighting for queer issues from HIV/AIDS … Read more
