Bangers & Lace GM and bartender Nick Ostapczuk was frank: “I’ve never enjoyed mayonnaise or Miracle Whip,” he said after being challenged by Justin Fox of North Pond with the Kraft sandwich spread. “I’ve never bought a single jar of Hellman’s or Miracle Whip, nor do I plan on it after this drink.” Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Given his dislike of the stuff, he hardly wanted the taste of Miracle Whip in the forefront of his cocktail....

The New York-based company, formed in 2003 by a niece of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, got a shot in the arm when Benoit-Swan Pouffer came on as artistic director in 2005. It’s now a leading purveyor of stylishly athletic works by emerging choreographers, many of them from outside the United States. On this program you can catch Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue by Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite, whose sprawling The Second Person closed Nederland Dans Theater’s June concert here with a bang....

QI’m pro-choice. The antichoice position—particularly the dumb contention that “personhood” begins when sperm hits egg—is illogical and unappealing. It’s not the most unappealing quality I can think of in a partner, though—that would probably be dishonesty. Your advice last week to the young woman who discovered that her boyfriend is antichoice was terrible. You advised LIFE to tell her boyfriend that she’s pregnant in order to see if that changes his position....

Adapted and directed by Frank Galati, this austere yet lyrical production melds Oedipus Rex with excerpts from the writings of Sigmund Freud, who saw in the ancient drama a “compulsion which everyone recognizes because he has felt traces of it in himself.” Galati opens with a lecture by Freud (Nick Sandys), which turns into a production of Sophocles’ tragedy. By interpolating Freud’s writings, Galati underscores not only the autobiographical roots of Freud’s groundbreaking theories but the psychological underpinnings of the original play....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The news today of Eartha Kitt’s death brought to mind her brilliant performance here in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, the monodrama-with-music about jazz great Billie Holiday. Performing at the Athenaeum Theatre in 1996, Kitt made no attempt to duplicate Holiday’s fluid vocal style, which was very different from her own throaty, vibrato-filled growl. Instead, she completely inhabited the role on her own terms, melding her distinctive personality and powerful stage presence with Holiday’s tragic story and putting a new spin on such Holiday standards as “Strange Fruit....

Record Store Day has most definitely busted out of its britches. Since its first installment in 2008, this homage to independently owned brick-and-mortar record stores has grown from a small underground phenomenon into an ocean-straddling monster. It’s just about impossible to keep up with all the discounts, promotions, and in-store performances, and because the number of special releases has nearly reached 300—many of them gimmicky or extravagant in the extreme and pressed in tiny editions—some shops are sure to begin the day with lines stretching down the sidewalk outside....

The Chicago Underground Film Festival continues through Sunday, March 10, with screenings at the Logan, 2646 N. Milwaukee, 773-342-5555. Tickets are $7 and a festival pass, good for all screenings and events, is $60; both can be purchased at ticketfly.com. Following are reviews of selected films and videos; for a full schedule see cuff.org. Hit & Stay Heartfelt and informative, this historical documentary considers the role of civil disobedience in the anti-Vietnam War movement, focusing on the efforts of priests, nuns, and other devout Catholics....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » After taking Nance Klehm‘s “wild pickling” workshop last fall, I spent the winter trial-and-errorring my way through jar after jar of homemade kimchi. Some of it was spicy enough to put hair on your esophagus, and one batch was so salty it could strip paint, but it was an easy and (mostly) delicious way to keep veg in my diet through the darkest months of the year, and I’m fairly confident my boosted sour-cabbage consumption kept the flu and other bugs (mostly) at bay....

Q So I have been in a relationship with the same guy since I was about 16. It’s been a little over four years now, but I came out to him a year ago about the fact that I’m bisexual, which he has no problem with. So since then, I have had wild fantasies about a threesome with a really hot girl. But it’s a lot harder to arrange that than it seems....

Things are so grim in the news business that last week Northwestern University’s Medill journalism school hosted a lecture titled “HELP! Strategies for Career Survival in a World Where the Only Constant Is Change.” It promised advice from former Newsweek and LA Times reporter David Friendly, who’s survived by switching careers, from journalism to showbiz. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » This hybrid creature—the performing wordsmith—has been spotted recently in a couple of local experiments....

Mayor Daley has so carefully cultivated his ecofriendly image—he’s the rust-belt mayor who installed a garden atop City Hall!—that not even his critics question his commitment to going green. But maybe they should. With Green Metropolis, Owen, a staff writer for the New Yorker, is intent on bringing us back to earth and all its ecological troubles. And he particularly wants to give us a close look at New York City, which he argues (sorry, Mayor Daley) is the greenest burg in the U....

Last August, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra announced that it had filled two prominent jobs. Stephen Williamson, a seasoned performer who’d been with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 2003, would be the new principal clarinet. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Jeong had been at the Philharmonic less than a full season. And that was her first job out of Juilliard, where she’d just completed a master’s degree....

In Paul Rudnick’s playful take on the Old Testament, God creates Adam and Steve–and a pair of lesbians named Jane and Mabel to boot. The first act follows these four through queer reimaginings of biblical incidents: the Fall, the Flood, Egyptian enslavement. In the second, set in the present, the two couples reevaluate their faith as it relates to contemporary issues like same-sex marriage and AIDS. Some of the Bible’s comic potential gets lost in the script’s Hollywood-esque combination of cheek and sappiness, and Eudaimonia Professional Theater makes matters worse by flubbing the timing: the play’s many blackouts and scene transitions are clumsy, and the actors, though earnest, can’t sell the jokes or the sentiment....

But when he came back to town the mayor vowed to look out for taxpayers and make sure any final Olympic agreement would ensure they’re not left with the tab. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Who’s going to provide billions of dollars worth of insurance and funding, and how will the mayor and his bid committee get them to do it at no cost to the public?...

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Goofus: a Latin declension of the middle-class Disney mutt, best known for his unbuttoned longjohns and his stammering, guttural dim-wittedness. McPherson: the lovesick, necrophiliac cop played by Dana Andrews in Laura. Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that Walt Disney hired Otto Preminger to remake his own noir as a cartoon, a sort of animated True-Life Adventure. Or that Otto Preminger, opting for an animated remake himself, farmed out part of the work to the Disney studio, which took it upon itself to undermine the class status of Detective Lt....

Sam Lewis, codirector of the Elastic Arts Foundation and hip-hop curator for ChicagoMusic.org, relishes: Half Italian Chicago has no shortage of fine Italian delis. Unfortunately, none were close to my not-for-profit in Avondale, where I’m usually hankering for a crusty bread sandwich . . . until now! Recently, Half Italian opened on Milwaukee Avenue, and I’m filled with joy! Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Nancy A....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » If you’re a big Kanye fan and/or someone who’s always been curious what would happen if Yohji Yamamoto and H.R. Giger collaborated on a shoe design, you are no doubt extremely amped for the arrival of the Kanye-designed Nike Air Yeezy 2. Well, that happens this weekend, and as per the streetwear industry’s standard ridiculous supply/demand ratio, there are only going to be a few pairs available in the whole city of Chicago....

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for: the chance to vote for the next Cook County court clerk. Incumbent state’s attorney Anita Alvarez is running for reelection, but she’s unopposed, and many of the candidates in the most contested legislative races can be distinguished only by who’s backing them. In other words: what’s good is getting behind a winner. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » See—there’s all sorts of fun in that clerk’s race....

Every once in a while the universe manages to come close to being exactly as it should be. For instance, right now Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” is at number 19 on the Hot 100, which isn’t exactly the placement it deserves, but isn’t too far off either. This isn’t the French robot duo’s first appearance on the chart (“Around the World” made it to number 61 in 1997 and “One More Time” did the same in 2000), but it’s the highest spot that they’ve achieved....

Oh, for fuck’s sake. What he’s blithely referring to is Obama’s plan to raise income taxes on households making $250K. No one’s capping income, as Kass implies, but I guess 39%: socialism, 35%: TEH AMERICAN DREAM. If you think that’s too much–or Obama’s plans to substantially raise the capital gains tax on the same income bracket, or estate taxes on estates worth over $3.5 million dollars–fine. But it’s a better deal than the early years of Chairman Reagan’s reign, who saddled anyone with a 1983 income of $106K ($233K in 2008 dollars, via) with a 50% tax burden....