Skrillex aflame Hopefully by this point you are at least close to fully engaged with your day. Ungroggy. Sufficiently caffeinated. Maybe somewhat in or near the zone. But it’s entirely possible that you aren’t all the way there yet, which would be perfectly understandable. Today’s kind of just a regular old Thursday in January, which after the frantic pace of the holidays (and the couple of weeks of socially accepted goldbricking that follows it) can seem even less exciting than a typical almost-end-of-the-week....

A couple’s marriage is edging toward collapse when they try to reboot their dormant sex life in this sly, hip, and rewarding comedy of manners. Kathryn Hahn (We’re the Millers, Revolutionary Road) triumphs in her first leading role, playing an anxious Los Angeles housewife and mother who channels her frustration into volunteer work at her local Jewish community center and weekly sessions with her lesbian shrink (Jane Lynch, spot-on). After the heroine and her increasingly remote husband (a solid Josh Radnor) visit a strip club, she naively befriends the waifish sex worker they met there (Juno Temple, terrific)....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The Sun-Times has a (disappointingly short) guide to Hyde Park courtesy of the Obamas, although it’s tough to recommend much in the way of food and shopping in the neighborhood. Having seen the senator in Calypso, I can confirm they’re telling the truth about that, and I second their choice. Calypso rules. Go there instead of the overrated Dixie Kitchen....

Handball is a lot like racquetball, with one significant difference: there aren’t any rackets. Since the ball is also a bit smaller and harder, players wear thin gloves that are sort of like what batters wear in baseball. And, as keen observers may note, most human hands are smaller than the average racket. All of this means that while handball is an elemental game—it doesn’t get much more basic than hitting a ball against the wall with your hand—it’s also fast, fun, and really freaking tough....

Rogers Park is an edgy place. Bordered by the lake and Evanston as well as its sister neighborhood, West Ridge, it has always been influenced and shaped by its juxtapositions between built environment and natural world, between city and suburb. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The Chicago and North Western Railroad’s Milwaukee Line came through in 1873 and a commercial strip grew on Clark Street near the station at Ravenswood and Greenleaf....

2007: “Never knew, didn’t care.”1986: “Never knew, didn’t care.” Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Any magazine worth its salt has someone on it like Chris Newman, someone who’s blunt, impolitic, and intolerant of frivolous excursions when there’s God’s work to be done. Chicago magazine began as a program guide for WFMT. It grew and grew, turned into a city monthly, and in 1976, the year WFMT renamed it Chicago, Newman came on staff....

Wellfleet Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Dugan makes up the menu, which changes monthly, emphasizing pristine prime ingredients like sturgeon caviar, sushi-grade fish, Kobe beef, and Kurobuta pork. Though not a trained chef himself, he’s picked up plenty from working with chefs over his 30 years in the fish industry. “That’s really how I learned everything,” he says. At the time Dugan was already acquainted with chefs Charlie Trotter, Jean Joho, and Eric Aubriot, and he quickly established himself as a supplier for high-end restaurants like Spiaggia and Tru....

Nathan Abshire, Master of the Cajun Accordion: The Classic Swallow Recordings (Ace) Louisiana accordionist and singer Nathan Abshire helped popularize Cajun music during the 60s folk revival, and this superb 25-track anthology collects his work for the Swallow label between 1965 and 1976, fronting his own Pine Grove Boys as well as the Balfa Brothers. Born in 1913, Abshire picked up the accordion at age eight, and by the mid-30s he’d cut a handful of sides for Bluebird Records with his Rayne-Bo Ramblers; but until he scored a hit in 1950 with the first version of his signature song, “Pine Grove Blues” (represented here in a 1966 version), his recording career progressed in fits and starts....

It looks as if we’ll enjoy a pennant race after all this season, but on the unexpected side of town. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » As the game began the youthful Brew crew looked indomitable. Did those kids ever attack the ball during batting practice! Towering Corey Hart, six-foot-six, shot line drives in all directions, and rookie Ryan Braun seemed to be reveling in the batting cage after a painful infield practice....

QI’ve been confused about my sexuality for two years. I am a 22-year-old female. I liked guys when I was in school, but then, in perhaps the most stereotypical of fashions, I developed a huge crush on Tegan and Sara when I was nearly 20. I like the idea of being with women, but I have never had a major crush on anyone since. So I’m really confused over what my sexual orientation actually is....

When Lauren Feece and her husband, Chris Silva, moved back to Chicago two years ago after a four-year stint as caretakers for an old coffee plantation in the Puerto Rican jungle, they were slightly overwhelmed by the change in scenery. Fortunately, their house in Wicker Park is buffered from the city noise by an expansive front garden, filled with plants and shady trees, perfect for lounging under. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I was on vacation last week — in Miami of all places — when Jose Contreras pulled up lame covering first with a torn Achilles tendon. It’s a career-threatening injury, especially given the Cuban-born pitcher’s probable age, so his career — his White Sox career, anyway — flashed before my eyes. I recalled particularly the game in 2005 when he outdueled Randy Johnson — then pitching for the New York Yankees — and began the Sox’ determined march toward their championship....

I’m having a problem. Twice when my girlfriend has given me oral sex, I’ve come in her mouth and then a little urine came out. She’s understandably mad. The first time it happened was in the morning when I had wood, so I thought it was just me being full of piss, but the second time was when I wasn’t full of piss. I just came a lot and she kept sucking and a little bit of urine came out....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » In last Thursday’s Shows to See post I neglected to mention that we’re in the midst of the year’s last big city-sponsored music fest: World Music Festival. As I write in the paper’s festival preview, bureaucratic fumbling and a ridiculously late start in organizing has sapped much of the vitality from the event, the first without founder Michael Orlove at the helm....

Getty Images/iStockphoto Test security is no better today than it was 20 years ago. Put a lot on the line with standardized tests and you’ll have cheating, critics of high-stakes testing say. They point to the scandal in Atlanta. And they cite Campbell’s Law: “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures.” Education researcher Richard P. Phelps maintains that this isn’t necessarily so....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » It’s usually forgotten these days, but new Cubs manager Lou Piniella has a cameo in one of the most important baseball books ever written. He turns up in the early pages of Jim Bouton‘s Ball Four–in fact, in the first actual diary entry of Bouton’s account of the 1969 season. That spring saw Marvin Miller lead the first players’ strike at the start of training camp....

In many major U.S. cities, the most visible Peruvian cultural imports are those poncho-draped guys with the pan flutes. But Chicago is home to a significant Peruvian population that supports at least nine endemic restaurants—some very good. So anyone with knowledge of them can be forgiven for initially viewing the landing of Peruvian star chef Gastón Acurio and his pan-Peruvian Tanta with the same skepticism that greeted (and chased out) carpetbagging celebs like Laurent Tourondel who plant their brands without bothering to figure out what Chicagoans seek out or, more importantly, need in their restaurants....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Collins has some company. A couple weeks ago I wrote about how 12th Ward alderman George Cardenas said he’d eschewed fund-raising, instead asking supporters to donate to charity in his honor—a maneuver that some campaign finance experts don’t think is legal. A couple of his colleagues, the 11th Ward’s James Balcer and the 35th Ward’s Rey Colon, also reported raising zilch in the first six months of 2008, while other politicians say they’ve brought in next to nothing: county commissioner Bill Beavers reported getting a meager $350, 17th Ward alderman Latasha Thomas just $600....

Andrew A. Nelles/Sun-Times Media Robin D’Averso, a charter school teacher, carries her daughter Zahraa Raven, 4, during a rally in opposition to the plan to close public schools in Chicago. A statistic that isn’t precise, that probably isn’t even a ballpark figure, but that someone thinks suggests the scope of a problem, may have a place in journalism. But that place isn’t on the front page of the Chicago Tribune supporting two days of editorials....

The Quest Theatre Ensemble’s musical for kids retells the legend of young King Arthur, who was groomed by the magician Merlin for his noble, ultimately tragic destiny. Performed in the low-ceilinged, newly air-conditioned basement of a Catholic school, the low-budget show features imaginative oversize puppets and papier-mache masks, which will likely entertain (or scare) young children. Quest takes great pride in performing for free, “making art available to everyone.” But these good intentions are undermined by hammy performances, out-of-tune singing, excessive violence, clunky lyrics, and a libretto by writer-director Andrew Park that veers between goofy comedy and preachy pomposity....