A Bit of a Stretch I am writing in response to Deanna Isaacs’s article “Is a Soundstage a Sound Investment?”, published November 19—a skeptical (at best) examination of the state of Illinois’ plans to offset the expenses of converting the empty Ryerson Steel plant into a series of stages for use in motion picture production. In her article, Ms. Isaacs misconstrues the work of another writer, and then, with seemingly no familiarity with her subject—delivers a lackluster assessment of Chicago’s film community....

I did the film program at Columbia [College Chicago] and I wasn’t that into it—I spent, like, maybe a semester there and I dropped out. I’m happy that I didn’t go back. I wasn’t making any friends there. The whole reason of going to school is networking, but I realized I could do that with partying. Zain Curtis, 25, is at the forefront of Chicago club culture. His monthly dance party, CULT, attracts all walks of seapunks, goth kids, and Internet celebrities keen to hear his mix of underground and mainstream sounds....

Rebecca Miller Alessi’s Ark On Tuesday night London’s Alessi’s Ark performs at SPACE in Evanston, opening for Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers fame, and this feels like the second consecutive visit by Alessi Laurent-Marke where I’ve kind of been asleep at the wheel. Like her debut, her recently released second album The Still Life (Bella Union) has crept up on me—I skimmed through it when I first got it, but I failed to really give it a thorough listen until the other day, and now it’s working its way into my brain....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » There is no official Reader policy stating that people who read our blogs and check out the paper’s online features are better than the ones who only pick up the print edition, but if you look at the direction that publishing’s taking and the rapidly increasing weight advertisers put on online numbers you could be forgiven for (wink wink) “thinking” that you’re “more important” and “literally more valuable” than IRL-onlys....

The Big Combo Tomorrow night, the University of Chicago’s Doc Films will screen the Joseph H. Lewis noir Gun Crazy, one of the major works of classic B cinema and one of the most radical and thoroughly entertaining movies in American film history, period. Prior to a renewed interest in expressionistic style during the 1970s, Lewis was considered a simple B movie director in the United States. (That wasn’t the case elsewhere, of course—the staff of Cahiers du Cinema sang his praises while his career was still ongoing....

Jordan Schwartz D. Boon of the Minutemen Last year I fully intended to write about the recent coffee table book We Got Power! Hardcore Punk Scenes From 1980s Southern California (Bazillion Points). The lavish four-pound, 12-by-nine-inch, 304-page hardcover book included reprints of the mere six cut-and-pasted issues of the titular LA zine (the last of which was partially laid out, but never actually printed), along with a cornucopia of great photos shot mainly by Jordan Schwartz—the teenager who, along with Dave Markey, by Jordan Schwartz and Dave Markey, the teenagers who published We Got Power!...

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The South Loop’s City Tavern, Mike Sula finds, is conceived to make you think, “Hey, I’m an early American colonist!” Even the cocktails—Fishhouse Punch, a rum punch, etc—are inspired by pre-Revolutionary models. So what’s chef Kendal Duque, who made a splash with Sepia a few years back, doing here? His signature flatbreads, for one, along with a widely cast net of a menu that includes sandwiches, charcuterie, entrees, and more entrees, the last from the grill....

Cotes du Rhone Bistro Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Dinner at Cotes du Rhone, the new Edgewater bistro from former Cafe Bernard chef Brian Moulton, shot out of the gate with a trio of smartly executed classic French starters: piping hot, garlicky escargots; a complex, satiny duck liver pate; and plump mussels in an addictive garlic-white wine broth that should give the mollusks over at the Hopleaf a run for their money....

The big grocery stores have a unique ability to pair old, poorly rotated produce and an overall unpleasant parking/shopping/checking-out experience. Whole Foods is an exception, but it’s also the only place you can accidentally spend $15 on a salad from the salad bar. Family Fruit Market in Portage Park is a real breath of fresh air. And fresh produce. The market prides itself on rotating the fruits and vegetables at regular intervals and it shows; everything is ripe and bright, and the selection is amazing....

Sandrine Lee Shemekia Copeland From the time she arrived on the scene as a teenager in the mid-90s, it’s been clear that blues singer Shemekia Copeland—daughter of the Texas bluesman Johnny “Clyde” Copeland—possesses one of the genre’s greatest voices. Even as a kid her instrument seemed fully formed, although she didn’t always wield it with precision. She’s steadily improved her control over the last decade and a half, and she sounds as nuanced and focused as ever on her latest recording, 33 1/3 (Telarc)....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Show: DJ Shadow “The 14 years that have passed since the release of DJ Shadow’s debut album, Endtroducing. . . . . , have done little to diminish the shocking impact of its elaborate sample-based constructions, and the legions of wannabes who’ve tried to match its quality haven’t done much damage either,” writes Miles Raymer. “Shadow himself seems to have given up on matching it, and has instead switched from showcasing the depth of his crates to emphasizing their breadth....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Videographer John Yingling (pictured at left), who documents the local music scene on his website Gonzo Chicago, has a little treat planned for the holidays: he’s compiling his favorite footage from 2011 into a year-end wrap-up film. He posted the news on his website last night in the form a 44-second trailer. If you pay really close attention to it, you’ll be able to make out split-second clips of some of the year’s most memorable musical moments: Thee Oh Sees at the Logan Square monument, Cave’s jaunt around town on the back of a flatbed truck, Running at Bitchpork, and Ty Segall’s secret gig at Treasure Town....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The Jazz Showcase, which has been homeless since the end of last year, is staging an impressive benefit tomorrow, March 1, at the Harris Theater, to help with relocation costs once it finds a new home, something owner Joe Segal says will happen. The club has long been the place in town to regularly check out the finest in mainstream jazz....

Within weeks of each other last year Frank Ocean and the Weeknd, both largely unknown R&B artists at the time, released free digital albums—Nostalgia, Ultra and House of Balloons, respectively—that conformed to the structures of R&B but explored sonic spaces indebted to the aesthetics of indie rock. In a reversal of the status quo for R&B, they broke first with the largely white hipster demographic before catching on with the largely black “urban” audience....

Our Segregated City I am a black woman who is voting for Rahm if he gets on the ballot. I don’t need, or want a “coalition” to tell me who to vote for, and a black candidate does not automatically get my vote. I know many who feel this way, and I wish the media would stop focusing on these stories. —dwn2earth Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Speaking as a white person who eagerly voted for the first black President, I think racial polarization in Chicago is unfortunate....

In this Griffin Theatre Company production, ten actors bring to life excerpts from letters written by U.S. soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. William Massolia’s poignant collage, adapted from multiple sources, has no political agenda; instead it conveys a young warrior’s dissolving sense of indestructibility, the role of faith in keeping soldiers honorable and sane, acceptance and almost unfathomable optimism in the face of sacrifice, the grief of families left behind....

QI’m a 38-year-old straight male in a long-term relationship. We have two children, still quite young. I am not sure what killed the intimacy of our relationship, but my spouse and I have been physically disconnected for years. This led to some rather sleazy adulterous behavior on my part. We recently discussed the topic at length (at which time I informed her of my indiscretions); we have decided to remain together for our children because we work well together as parents and we are pretty good friends....

QI have a mentally disabled cousin who I haven’t figured out how to help. He’s lived for more than 40 years in the same nursing home in a small, conservative town. His mental age is about eight, there are other mental illness issues, and he has some physical problems. He is now in his late 60s. He has always enjoyed dressing up as a woman, but given that he’s in a Christian nursing home, he must keep it fairly secret....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Eight years later, Chicago has just found out that Streetwise is in big trouble. “The current economic slowdown has hit this 16 year old non-profit in the pocketbook like a ton of bricks,” said a Monday news release from the paper’s City Council champion, Alderman Manuel Flores. “The iconic Chicago organization now finds itself at risk of being out on the street....

The last time Jeff Mangum toured behind the songs he wrote for Neutral Milk Hotel, the world was a very different place. One difference in particular is that in late 1998, when the band hit Chicago on the only real tour it ever did to promote its landmark album, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, it was booked at tiny Lincoln Park club Lounge Ax. When Mangum rolled through early last week as a solo act, he played two nights at the 1,000-seat Athenaeum Theatre, both of which sold out in minutes—online scalpers were selling tickets for almost $200 in the days just before the shows....