Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Mod Mex: The New Face of Mexican Food—billed as a “face-off” among four prominent chefs, hosted by Frontera Grill at Kendall College last Saturday—took on the question of what modern Mexican cuisine is. While it didn’t promise to answer that question, it did say that Chicago chefs Rick Bayless (Frontera, etc) and Carlos Gaytan (Mexique), New York’s Alex Stupak (Empellon), and Mexico City’s Jorge Vallejo (Quintonil) would defend their respective visions of Mexican cooking....

The Immigrant Now that my annual countdown of favorite films of the year has been published, I should note two glaring omissions from the list. James Gray’s The Immigrant and Claude Lanzmann’s Last of the Unjust received their first Chicago runs this spring, but they both premiered at the 2013 Chicago International Film Festival, which makes them, per our rules, ineligible for inclusion this year. Nevertheless they towered over nearly everything else I saw in 2014....

Here’s one: “The Frankfurt convention grounds are also jammed with books from all around the world. What struck me was the optimism of it: all that work to create books on the hope that someone would read them. And they make fun of bloggers for whistling in the wind.” Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » But Rosenbaum can’t get past how heartless he thinks Jarvis sounds — toward the “poor fools” who make books, and to “the suffering of who knows how many families” who’ve been supported by the Monitor....

Q I’m writing in celebration of the California decision to allow gays to marry. I’m thrilled—I’ve always thought that the idea that gay marriage could hurt or affect straight people in any way was ridiculous. But a year ago, I found out I was wrong. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Ultimately, he didn’t do it, but this conflict very nearly ended our relationship. So going forward, I think we straights and you gays have to talk about this question: If gays have a right to marriage and family, do they also have a right to start those families with my boyfriend—no matter what I think and feel about it?...

Current and former allies of Jackson’s have told me repeatedly that he’s struggled to figure out his next move since watching Obama’s ascent in 2004. Initially, he couldn’t help but feel like he was supposed to be the young, smart, dynamic black politician from Chicago with the interpersonal and communication skills to cross racial and class lines–if only he weren’t saddled with the name Jesse Jackson. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

QReading you over the years has absolutely changed my mind on gay marriage. I wanted to let you know that. I also live in Maryland, and, as you know, we voted last week to allow same-sex couples to legally marry. I was excited that I got to vote for marriage equality in my home state, Dan—even I agree that it’s fucked up that people get to vote on the civil rights of LGBT people at all....

We all know the economy is lousy, which makes for busted budgets and–worse–constituents who want something to show for their taxes. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » And thanks to Rod Blagojevich and Roland Burris, it’s a good time to be a reformer, or at least to tell the public that you’re not Rod Blagojevich or Roland Burris, and that you’re fiercely opposed to going to prison....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » When I’m working the Green City Market, it’s always better to catch me early in the morning. But not too early or I’m cranky. Or eating my breakfast. Or blogging in my head. You know, on second thought maybe it’s better not to catch me. A young woman asked me in the market’s first hours this morning: “Do you know what the difference is between these Asian pears?...

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Herman wrote the sharper story, quoting Linzer more fully. “No evidence to point to any likelihood” sounds like a cute way of saying there’s evidence, but not enough of it to drag this matter on. Of the quotes in question, the money quote had Lavine claiming that an unnamed junior had said about a marketing class, “I sure felt good about this class....

Thursday16 The Bad PlusSnow Angels Friday17 The Bad PlusBoneramaJohn LegendMagdaMichael McDermottMillionYoung, Sunglasses Saturday18 The Bad PlusBoneramaJuiceboxxx Sunday19 The Bad PlusMemorize the SkyWaka Flocka Flame Wednesday22 Hamid Drake & Michael Zerang SNOW ANGELS Since 2003 this seasonal “supergroup”—a tinsel-encrusted side project that includes members of Mannequin Men, Vee Dee, Johnny & the Limelites, and the Automatic Stinging Machines—has thrown an annual party where they’ve played garagey, ebullient covers and PBR-flavored holiday originals....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Richard Longworth, a former senior writer at the Tribune, remembers 1984, when Murdoch bought the Sun-Times and debased it overnight. “The [Tribune] company’s spokesman reassures us that, whatever happens, the board intends to achieve its goal of enhancing shareholder value,” Longworth wrote me. But Marshall Field V sold the Sun-Times to Murdoch “for roughly the same reason, to get maximum value to enable his co-owner, his brother [Teddy], to buy the snazziest possible cars....

In this week’s restaurant listings there are ten new and recently reviewed restaurants: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Al Dente, a BYO Irving Park storefront from a vet of Marche, MK, and the now-shuttered Cibo Matto, among othersBombay Spice, the Indian sibling of neighboring Roka AkorBopNGrill, a second location of the quick-service joint serving Korean rice plates, fusion burgers, and kimchi friesBrunch, a River North breakfast-and-lunch spot that touts its commitment to sustainabilityEthyl’s Beer & Wine Dive, one of the latest restaurants in Mia Francesca jefe Scott Harris’s still-growing empireJin Thai Cuisine, a sleek Edgewater BYO Thai joint Native Foods Cafe, the Wicker Park location of the vegan chain restaurantQuay Chicago, huge riverfront restaurant and lounge in the former De La Costa spaceRoots Handmade Pizza, the West Town restaurant that’s endeavoring to win Chicagoans over to Quad Cities-style pizzaUrban Vegan, BYO vegetarian Thai in Ravenswood

World Music Festival Chicago 2010 gets under way on Tuesday, September 21, with a three-day minifestival called India Calling. Restricted to genres with roots on the subcontinent, the music nonetheless covers a broad range—scheduled performers include masters of Hindustani and Carnatic classical traditions, a funky “dhol ‘n’ brass” outfit descended from Indian wedding bands, and DJs spinning bhangra, Bollywood, and electronic fusion. A variety of nonmusic events—yoga and meditation workshops, Bollywood film screenings, dance performances—celebrate other aspects of Indian culture....

Does anyone else think Sonic Youth played their guest appearance on Gossip Girl last night just about perfectly? They pulled out a great back-catalog cut from an underappreciated album, gave it a nice grup-friendly makeover, then released it as a digital download and as part part of a package deal with a retro-stylee T-shirt. Yes, the whole thing is more than a little at odds with the idealized image of Sonic Youth that a lot of old fans are still carrying around—Gossip Girl is aimed at a demographic that actually uses “OMG” in spoken conversation, and the vintage graphic on the shirt has been given a slightly washed-out look, like a faux-distressed Pink Floyd shirt from Target—but I dig the execution nonetheless....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I’ve taken to the Bleader before to express my love for Puffy Areolas and all things related. I included their chaotic set at last year’s HoZac Blackout festival in my “most memorable live rock of 2011” post, and I saw them about five times at SXSW this spring—by now they’ve pretty much worked their way into my heart as my favorite live band ever....

Charm City DJ and producer Schwarz ought to be a self-help guru; on his new single, “U R Beautiful,” the Baltimore club maven shouts relentlessly positive mantras about loving yourself. Schwarz does amped-up anthems right (he produced BBU’s “Outlaw Culture“), and the track’s upbeat dance pulse only bolsters the sincerity with which he delivers his simple message. The life-affirming jam is also cosigned by a guy who knows a thing or two about just that—freewheeling Milwaukee rapper Juiceboxxx, who released the tune on his Thunder Zone imprint....

Part of a 40-week series in which we take a look at a specific year in Chicago history via the pages of the Reader. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The Boss Bows Out By Tom Fitzpatrick He was dead now. In the morning he had been a physical marvel, shooting baskets like a young colt and giggling like a politician who owned the world....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Atul Gawande reads from his new book, Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, today at the University of Chicago. Gawande is a practicing doctor as well as a professor at Harvard Medical School, but he’s also a staff writer at the New Yorker and one of the best non-fiction writers on the planet. His website has a bunch of his articles, including many of his longer NY’er pieces....

I was standing in front of Vanessa Harris’s video God Bless This Mess when a fellow gallerygoer stopped dead beside me. “Nude!” he said. I looked at the video, in which a woman’s bare torso is smeared with frosting, sprinkles, and other assorted foodstuffs, and agreed that, yes, there was nudity there. As the video proceeded and the woman shook and slapped her breasts, my interlocutor exclaimed, “This is my favorite piece!...

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » But this vision of a daylong celebration of the finest piece of the pig was not the idle dream of a shiftless lollygagging wastrel. After just a few months of relentless boosterism via Facebook, Twitter, and quaint face-to-face pressing of the flesh, Seth Zurer, along with fellow organizers Michael Griggs and Andre Pluess, have brought the bacon bacchanal one big step closer to coming off....