The seventh annual Chicago Anarchist Film Festival runs Saturday and Sunday, April 28 and 29, at Loyola Univ. Quinlan Life & Science Center, 6525 N. Sheridan. Each night’s program begins at 7:30 PM, runs about three hours, and screens by video projection; admission is $7. Among the works showing on Saturday are Marc Moscato’s The More Things Stay the Same, which profiles Chicago physician and anarchist Ben Reitman (a lover of Emma Goldman), and Joel Sucher and Steven Fischler’s Durruti: En la Revolucion Espanola (90 min....

GLBTQ The Glenwood GLBTQs looking for a low-key night out or a grown-up drink with friends need look no further than this newish spot on the Glenwood Arts District strip. In fact, the Glenwood is so unassuming that many a heterosexual has wandered in for a cold one and been surprised to find same-sex couples canoodling in the corners. Co-owned by Colm Tracy of T’s, the Glenwood shares her Andersonville sister’s inclusive vibe—it was our pick for best Chicago bar for mixed company in Best of Chicago 2008....

In 2010 Chicago’s venerable Delmark Records purchased the avant-garde catalog of the moribund Canadian jazz imprint Sackville Records, which was formed in 1968 by Bill Smith and John Norris. In general, the former, who also edited and published the jazz magazine Coda, was responsible for the label’s free-jazz offerings, while the latter focused on more traditional sounds. Delmark ended up buying that part of the catalog last year. By 2011 Delmark was distributing the remaining Sackville avant-garde catalog, promising to eventually issue previously unreleased material....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Mary Schmich has a good column today on the spring rash of homicides in the city. She talked to DePaul sociologist Greg Scott, whose observations track with what I’ve been reading and hearing for awhile–the CPD and the feds have done an admirable job breaking up Chicago gangs. “Chicago’s gangs are no longer the big, centralized regimes of legend, Scott said....

In 1999, Mickle Maher asked Colm O’Reilly, one of the savviest fringe actors in Chicago, to be in his new two-character show for Theater Oobleck, An Apology for the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Doctor John Faustus on This His Final Evening. Maher would play Faust, a skittish, self-aggrandizing schmuck facing his final hour on earth by delivering an extravagant, hilarious, and ultimately unnerving monologue about the sublime meaninglessness of nearly all human endeavors....

It’s been a widespread belief amongst hip-hop heads for years that all that had to happen for French Montana to become a mainstream pop star was for someone to finally put out his long-delayed official debut album. His ever-growing catalog of mixtapes had completely won over large swaths of the rap world, and T-shirts emblazoned with the logo of his Coke Boys crew are a common sight in New York, where he hails from....

In another life, and in other worlds, Northwestern University philosophy professor Peter Ludlow—aka Urizenus Sklar—was a fearless journalist, reporting on crime and official corruption and letting the chips fall where they may. He was also an eccentric: an elfin, shy, hypersensitive, secretive, and unpredictable high school and college dropout, famous among friends (who might not know that he suffered from ulcerative colitis) for subsisting largely on a diet of macaroni and cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches....

hewnbread.com Your daily bread It’s embarrassing to admit that the thing that made me start thinking seriously about economics for the first time since high school was a shortage of pastry. Particularly why some local bakeries have decided to stay open to sell bread or doughnuts only as long as supplies last, not until a set closing time. Did they do it to increase demand, knowing that if you need to get up early and repeatedly check a Twitter feed to get a loaf of bread that may disappear by the time you get to the front of the line, it only makes the bread seem more valuable?...

Greenspan, the trial lawyer for Radler’s former business partner, Conrad Black, wrapped up his cross-examination of Radler by letting Black’s jury know what a sweet deal Radler has going for him if he tells the court what the prosecution wants it to hear. Black’s charged with fraud. Radler pleaded guilty to fraud and is testifying against Black. Radler and the U.S. attorney have an understanding that when Black’s trial ends Radler will be sentenced to a 29-month prison sentence he can serve in Canada....

Last month I blogged about Ariana Grande’s “The Way” and the introduction of 90s female-fronted pop R&B into the mix of styles from the decade currently being revisited and revived by younger artists. A couple of weeks prior to that the British X-Factor-winning quartet Little Mix released a single called “How Ya Doin’?” that sounds pretty much exactly like something that En Vogue might have dropped back in their Funky Divas days, from its sweet but tenacious vocal performances to its breakbeat rhythm parts (sampled from the 1981 Whatanuts record “Help Is on the Way” that’s also been used by De La Soul and MC Lyte) to its lyrics about voicemail, which I’m not sure that anyone under the age of 25 even knows what that is....

Having said that, the total and complete freakout over her RFK reference is a total mystery to me. Five out of the eight diaries at DailyKos right now are about it; Keith Olbermann has a Special Comment; this post rounds up comments from the leading lights in the liberal blogosphere about this being the final straw; the MSM is latching on with headlines like Hillary Clinton Raises the Specter of the Unspeakable; etc....

John Preus is the son of Lutheran missionaries and the first Preus male in six generations who isn’t a pastor. If that makes him the family maverick, he still hasn’t lost his reverence for the past. In the age of suburban developments that he says “look like they fell out of a spaceship and into a field,” Preus prefers old materials with evidence of prior lives. “I like seeing how nature and human hands affect material over time,” he says....

Q My boyfriend and I have been living together for a year. He knows I’m an insecure person when it comes to my body. I’m not overweight, I’ve been told my whole life how good-looking I am, and my boyfriend tells me he loves my body. We have an active and interesting sex life. Here’s my problem: I get upset when he looks at porn. I never had a problem with porn until my previous boyfriend (he preferred porn to sex)....

Q Three months ago my sociopathic girlfriend dumped me because I was going into the military. Afterward, I found out she was cheating on me with a married man. The one great thing about her was that she opened me up. At 22, I’d been in only a few other relationships. The sex with her was amazing, and she turned me on to different things (kinks, dirty talk, foreplay). I now have two problems: (1) I’m going into the army and don’t want to get into a serious relationship, and (2) I’m having a hard time finding people willing to have casual-yet-kinky sex....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » If you visit the Reader online mostly via our blog, you already know that we recommend shows here—last week, for instance, Peter Margasak previewed a Tue 5/1 gig by Tomas Fujiwara’s new trio and the Fri 5/3 reception and performance celebrating the completion of Nick Butcher’s Free Jazz Bitmaps project. But there’s also an online analog to the Soundboard spread we run in print every week, and it’s easy to miss from here on the Bleader....

Choreographer Stephen Petronio brings his namesake company back to Chicago, after an absence of 12 years, with the apocalyptic Underland. Created in 2003, then remounted in 2011, Petronio’s hour-long piece captures the malaise triggered by 9/11 and its aftermath, the Iraq war. Nick Cave‘s gruff-voiced music is often morose or cynical. Tara Subkoff‘s many ingenious costumes, from shredded club clothes to punk-ballerina garb and ragged camouflage, effectively set each dystopic scene—as did the video projections of explosions, shattering glass, and flooded landscapes that originally accompanied Underland....

Kiss Kiss Cabaret New Year’s Eve Hullabaloo A night of burlesque, music, comedy, and magic hosted by the Flattery Brothers and starring the Kiss Kiss Coquettes. Hors d’oeuvres, a cash bar, champagne toast, and postshow dance party included. 10 PM, Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln, 773-404-7336, greenhousetheater.org, $42, $75 for two. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » New Year’s Eve: Moulin Rouge Enjoy appetizers and a cash bar before a 9:30 PM screening of the Baz Luhrmann musical....

It’s a Thursday evening in early November, and Chicago soul great Syl Johnson and five other veteran musicians are at Soundmine Studios in Stony Island Park to rehearse. Drummer Morris Jennings, bassist Bernard Reed, keyboardist Anthony Space, guitarist Larry Blasingaine, and baritone saxophonist Willie Henderson—sans horn and here to help with the arrangements—all have stands full of sheet music for a dozen tunes that Johnson recorded four decades ago. This band’s never played any of them, and Johnson himself might as well be learning them for the first time....

Champion of local and organic food Alice Waters will sign The Edible Schoolyard—her new book about the landmark gardening program she founded at a Berkeley middle school—at the Green City Market from 10:30 to 11:30 AM, then tour the market. Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum Eco-lot, 2430 N. Cannon. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The Greenheart Shop hosts “Living la Vida Verde,” an Earth Month event with a tasting of fair trade and organic coffee and tea, a cooking demo with seasonal, local, and organic food, a workshop on how to be become more energy efficient, and a guide to socially and environmentally friendly Chicago businesses....

RADIO: The WZRD DJ lockout grinds on On June 29 administrators at Northeastern Illinois University dissolved the student club that runs the school’s radio station, WZRD 88.3 FM, and barred its members from the facility. WZRD remains on the air, but it’s staffed by an administration-approved skeleton crew and mostly broadcasts an automated stream of music that the locked-out DJs (who call themselves “Wizards”) put together to play during personnel shortfalls....