Lifestyle

Journey back Inside The Blanket Fort as we dive into the first of our interviews from this year’s Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago: James A. Edstrom, author of Avenues of Transformation: Illinois’s Path from Territory to State. The winner of the 2023 Illinois State Historical Society Russell...

It’s hard to overstate how famous Lorado Taft was in Chicago in the first decades of the 20th century. His career as an artist began in the 1870s when, as a student at the future University of Illinois, Taft helped unpack crates of plaster casts of famous sculptures, which had broken in transit. As he learned how to repair them, he felt transformed. He pursued his dream of sculpting at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris. In the late 1880s, he moved to Chicago where he hoped sculpture had a future. To have a regular income, he taught sculpting at the Art Institute of Chicago.

picy beef noodle soup! It is like a Mexican caldo de res, but the meat is sliced into tender thick slices with udon noodles added. One of the owners, Nate Wong, says he was inspired to open this restaurant after visiting Taiwan with his wife. Eating the food there was a game changer for him.  […] The post Best Blending of Flavors: Taipei Cafe – Bridgeport appeared first on South Side Weekly.

IF SEPTEMBER 26 IS YOUR BIRTHDAY: Reach a state of balance and calm during the upcoming two to three weeks. You may have the opportunity to present deep feelings that could shift the perspective of others. Late October and early November might bring more social contacts into your circle as you enjoy group gatherings and local community events. Your common sense and business savviness could feel enhanced in the first half of December. This could possibly be a good time to reevaluate investments or to create strategies that improve profits and upgrade moneymaking activities. You might receive credit and recognition for a job well done and could feel safe and secure as the end of the year draws closer. Late December’s holidays might give you an opportunity to plan a romantic escapade with an affectionate partner or to take a vacation to an exotic or inspiring location.

Finding a good dessert just when we want it isn’t always easy. Many patisseries close too early for diners looking for an after-dinner treat. Not everybody might want to go out for ice cream. At Matcha-En, there’s something for everybody. With its expansive hours and convenient location, this comfortable dessert spot is there when we need it. Matcha-En operates three branches in Chicago and has recently made a foray into Urbana-Champaign, opening a location right by campus. Customers shouldn’t go in expecting a tea ceremony, but those looking for tea-infused desserts and an array of fun drinks won’t be disappointed.

SOUTH SHORE — South Shore Cultural Center visitors can get a taste of what’s to come at the center’s new Black-owned restaurant as it prepares for its grand opening in early October. Nafsi, an “elevated soul food” restaurant, is now open at the South Shore Cultural Center,...

If images are missing, read this online. For more coverage, visit our website. You’re reading the RoundTable’s free email newsletter — we publish it every weekday and on Sunday. It’s easy to sign up, and you can cancel at any time. Good Saturday morning, Evanston. Above,...

WICKER PARK — For decades, the Wicker Park area was known as Chicago’s “Polish Downtown,” where hundreds of stores, taverns and civic organizations set up shop to serve the neighborhood’s massive Polish and Polish-American populations. While many of those businesses and groups have since shut...

Premiering just as the millennium had turned, Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Topdog/Underdog” still has my vote as the best American play of the 21st century. It’s a phenomenal piece of writing, a poetic feast that manages to be rich in symbolism while still making you feel like its two brothers exist in real life. Booth and Lincoln are both emblematic and (pulsing) flesh and blood. So if you’ve never ...

CHICAGO — Thirty Years ago, the sports documentary Hoop Dreams was released in theaters, quickly becoming a sensation. Acclaimed film critic Roger Ebert called it “one of the best films about American life I have ever seen.” The documentary follows Chicago inner-city basketball players William Gates and Arthur Agee over a five-year period, as they […]

Kirk Franklin performs at The Reunion Tour at UIC’s Credit Union 1 Arena (Photo Credit: Instagram). The Credit Union 1 Arena at the University of Illinois at Chicago is the school’s home for basketball, but on Friday (Sept. 20th), the venue was transformed into a place of worship as gospel music lovers gathered to see Kirk Franklin’s Reunion tour.

I have an unused ticket to the August 12, 1966, Beatles concert held at the International Amphitheatre. I was supposed to go with my friends accompanied by one of my friends’ older brothers. But there were riots in Chicago that made my parents feel it was unsafe for us to go. I was the only one not allowed to go. I was devastated and very mad at my parents.

Kicking off this popular Chicago ensemble theater company’s 49th season a rather incompetent troupe of actors are expertly portrayed by a considerably expert cast, in Steppenwolf’s revival of Michael Frayn’s classic comedy “Noises Off,” directed by Anna D. Shapiro. A co-production with Geffen Playhouse. Featuring...

CHICAGO — It is no secret that Smashing Pumpkins front-man and Chicago native Billy Corgan is a huge Bozo fan. To celebrate the beloved character Corgan and his wife, Chloe Mendel, are hosting a Bozo-themed event in Highland Park in October. Madame Zuzu’s, a tea shop owned by Corgan, will host a Bozo’s Circus weekend […]

Austin Lunn’s most recent album as Panopticon, 2023’s The Rime of Memory (Bindrune), is in some ways his most traditional black-metal outing. The Louisville musician expanded the possibilities of the genre when he saturated his fifth record, 2012’s Kentucky, with Appalachian folk interpolations and explicit pro-labor ecological politics. While those elements are still present on The Rime of Memory, they’re buried further in the mix—here a barely audible speech, there an accordion breathing out a dissonant minor-key melody that could almost be a dance tune if slowed down or unknotted. But while the album is in some ways more conventional, it’s an amazing example of those conventions. Lunn has an uncanny sense of depth as an arranger, creating compositions so layered and intense they verge on harsh noise. But the murkiness resolves into choruses that soar up to pierce your ears with clean cinematic vocals, blastbeats that thunder in and out of syncopation, unexpected honest-to-god classic- and prog-rock guitar solos, weird sawing strings, and ambient crystalline keyboards that almost shimmer into melody before diving back into the maelstrom. Panopticon draws you in by making the gestures you associate with black metal, then buries you with a bleakly beautiful fecundity of invention. Lunn hasn’t abandoned his dark pastoral vision or his genius; he’s just integrated them into black metal so perfectly that you can’t tell where one forest ends and the other begins.

LOGAN SQUARE – A Northwest Side play cafe for Spanish-speaking families to incorporate their language and culture is struggling to keep its doors open as multiple summer promotions failed to bring in enough customers. Luna y Cielo Play Cafe, 3530 W. Armitage Ave., is a bilingual playroom designed around...

Just in time for Halloween, step inside “The Spirit Cabinet”—and discover that you are not alone! For two performances only, third-generation magician Dennis Watkins playfully introduces a spookier form of magic that Chicago audiences have not seen in decades. “The Spirit Cabinet” is inspired by classic spiritualist magic theater, where unseen forces move objects, spirits deliver messages from beyond and “Chicago's premiere resident magician” (Chicago Tribune) gazes into a crystal ball to tell you your secrets. Watkins' “The Spirit Cabinet” appears in a two-performance limited engagement, October 30 at 7:30pm and October 31 at 8pm at The Magic Parlour (50 W. Randolph); tickets are $95 (general admission) and $125 (includes a 25-minute VIP Encore Room experience following the show).

A local group that helps animals is seeking donations, after one of its facilities was damaged by the remnants of Hurricane Helene. Wright-Way Rescue has centers in Morton Grove and Murphysboro in southern Illinois.

Late light at the end of a beautiful day. Raymond Park looking northwest at Chicago Avenue and Grove Street. (Photo by Richard Cahan.) Richard Cahan takes photos for the Evanston RoundTable. He also is publisher of CityFiles Press, a small but mighty media company that believes in the power of words and pictures. You can reach him at... More by Richard Cahan.