In December 1898, some Chicagoans began wearing twine—twisted into the shape of a hangman’s noose—in their buttonholes. It was their way of sending a message to the City Council about an upcoming vote. “I will not be surprised to see some hanging done in the streets of Chicago,” said Mayor Carter H. Harrison II, sizing up the city’s mood. Between 1855 and 1861 city and state legislators passed laws allowing three companies to build and operate horse-drawn streetcars....

Metal Petals I first heard local singer-songwriter Lili K. on Chance the Rapper‘s breakthrough 2012 mixtape, #10Day. She played a backup singer to Chance on “Hey Ma,” and her fluttering brassy voice helped make the tune one of the mixtape’s high points. Since then I’ve noticed her name come up frequently in the local hip-hop scene, which is slightly odd considering Lili doesn’t make rap herself. The 21-year-old is a jazz vocalist....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » For the past hour or so the Internet’s been a-sizzle over a certain contentious pop songstress’s new video, but for all of the brilliant jokes it’s produced regarding dudes who look like the merch guys for vegan screamo bands and the cost of renting a couple of largish tigers, the clip mostly just makes me think of 90s Meat Loaf videos....

Rooney Mara and Channing Tatum in Side Effects By coincidence I saw Drew Tobia’s See You Next Tuesday at the Chicago Underground Film Festival (which I wrote about on Monday) a few days after catching up with Steven Soderbergh’s Side Effects, another New York production on the theme of mental illness. Tobia’s is by far the more compassionate film, though it’s interesting that its depiction of mental illness is objective while Soderbergh’s is subjective....

In honor of the 100th birthday of its Flat Iron Arts Building home, Collaboraction presents 11 short plays by 11 playwrights, each paying tribute to one decade of the Wicker Park icon’s history. Emily Schwartz specializes in gothic comedies and has a macabre, Goreyesque touch, so expect an infusion of dark wit and darker menace in her coverage of the building in the 1910s. Randall Colburn, who writes about the spiritual conflicts of born-again Christians caught between sex and God, most recently in Hesperia, takes on the 40s....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Mike Sula reviews Vera, the new Spanish wine bar from husband-and-wife team Mark (chef) and Liz (sommelier/front of the house) Mendez. Both Mendezes spent years at the 600-seat juggernaut Carnivale, but their new project eschews theatrics and size in favor of simplicity. There are no desserts, for example, just a selection of cheeses that when paired with some ham and a few glasses of wine could make a meal in itself....

“There’s very strong gang overtones to this particular event,” police superintendent Garry McCarthy said at a news conference last week. Jonathan Watkins has a long arrest record, and police maintain he’s also a Gangster Disciple. He clearly was the gunman’s target, McCarthy told reporters at the news conference last week. “This is another tragedy,” he said, “because no child, certainly not an infant, should be the victim of gang violence.”...

Julia Thiel Last Friday evening I stopped by Lillstreet Art Gallery for the opening of its new show, “Neat: The Art of the Whiskey Vessel.” It’s hard to imagine an event that more perfectly fits my interests: like anyone with good taste, I love whiskey, and I’ve been doing pottery for years (and, full disclosure, used to be a teaching assistant for classes at Lillstreet). In a ceramics class I took in college, the professor brought in several sake cups of different shapes and materials—mostly ceramic, but there were one or two wooden ones—and had us taste the same sake from the various cups....

“We got pegged as a noodle shop initially, but we’re actually an izakaya.” That was the hedge a server offered on a recent visit to Takashi Yagihashi’s Slurping Turtle, a bit off-message, since the chef himself disavowed a direct connection to the traditional Japanese pub in the preopening hype of his River North . . . whatever it is. Much of the anticipation for Slurping Turtle has centered on the prospect of a menu that channels Takashi’s signature bowl (served only during Sunday lunch at his eponymous upscale Bucktown restaurant) or an improvement on his noodle shop in Macy’s....

We keep hearing about the bad place the record industry is in: people are buying less music than ever, the new generation wants to download records for free, labels are folding left and right. But Bric-a-Brac, a record store that just opened on the border of Logan Square and Avondale, is a hopeful sign that people may still want to pay for their music, at least in Chicago, and that given the chance they’ll do it in person—with any luck there are enough such people to support a bit of growth in the brick-and-mortar record business....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Saturday at 3 PM Corbett vs. Dempsey gallery celebrates the release of the book Traveling the Spaceways: Sun Ra, the Astro Black, and Other Solar Myths (WhiteWalls), a companion to the publisher’s previous volumes The Wisdom of Sun Ra and Pathways to Unknown Worlds. According to the gallery, Spaceways addresses the work of the interplanetary composer, bandleader, and philosopher from “art historical and musical perspectives, as well as looking at his growing influence on contemporary visual art....

The Old Town School of Folk Music heads outside this weekend for the tenth annual Chicago Folk & Roots Festival, which features two days of music in Welles Park, 2333 W. Sunnyside. Old Town’s typically eclectic programming style is again on full display, with anything that’s not overtly rock, jazz, or classical considered fair game. National and international touring acts predominate on the main stage, while locals command the other spots: one stage is reserved for the school’s crew of instructors, another is dedicated to dancing, a third focuses on kids’ music, and at the gazebo stage attendees are invited to take part in a series of jam sessions....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » If you’ve seen Cookies & Carnitas at the Green City Market, you know that they’ve been selling things like tacos and porchetta sandwiches made with Becker Lane pork from Iowa artisanal farmer Jude Becker for the last couple of years. At the market the point is to get people to try Becker’s superior pork in an accessible form. But in their shop, which opened two weeks ago at 5757 N....

I recently bought a remarkable three-CD set called “This May Be My Last Time Singing: Raw African-American Gospel on 45 RPM, 1957-1982.” It’s a compilation of 72 small-label or self-released recordings made by church congregations, evangelists, and beyond-obscure groups with names like the Skylifters and Little Midget & the Morning Stars. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Urgency and high stakes also happen to be components of compelling drama—which may help account for the success of Regina Taylor’s Crowns, a musical that derives most of its impact from a whole bunch of gospel classics like “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” and Sam Cooke’s “Touch the Hem of his Garment....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » If you wanted to go to WhiskyFest Chicago you needed to buy a ticket weeks ago, but Thursday of Whisky Week sees lots of free prefest tastings with whiskey makers in town for the event. A few highlights: Julian Van Winkle of Old Rip Van Winkle bourbons will speak and sign bottles at a tasting at Lush Wine and Spirits in Roscoe Village (5:30-8 PM)....

A couple Thursdays ago I had mouths to feed, but I was floundering way beyond a deadline and just in front of a flight out of town early the next morning. That happened to be the very week that Michael Ruhlman called bullshit on the claim that we—as a society—don’t have time to cook, so I was feeling a bit guilty about what was about to happen. But it had to happen....

The Chef: Jeffrey Sills (Sprout)The Challenger: Blair Herridge (Browntrout)The Ingredient: Chicken gizzards Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The gizzard is a muscular second stomach that all birds have to help pulverize their food; some birds swallow small rocks to grind up harder items like seeds and nuts. Methods of preparing gizzards are as diverse as the countries in which they’re traditionally eaten: fried, grilled, pickled, stewed, or barbecued; they’re common in Haiti, Portugal, Hungary, Nigeria, France, and throughout southeast Asia, as well as in parts of the United States....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Mark Schmitt was in the thick of the fight for campaign finance reform. In a long article in the spring issue of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas (free registration required but worth it), he looks back on it with an honesty and clarity that reformers of all stripes would do well to emulate. Instead of hugging McCain-Feingold ever closer and vilifying those who find ways around it, he reexamines what he was trying to do and why it didn’t work....

Stretching along its namesake street from California to Kimball (2250 to 2850 N. Milwaukee), the Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival runs Fri-Sun 7/23-7/25, from 4-11 PM Friday and from noon-11 PM Saturday and Sunday. The fest’s three outdoor music stages feature an impressive cast of local players. Bookings on the Main Stage, at Milwaukee and Logan by the Illinois Centennial Monument, include the Drastics and the Opposite Sides on Friday; the 1900s, the Blue Ribbon Glee Club, Black Bear Combo, and Mr....

The Bad Apple Craig Fass and Mandy Franklin (Menagerie, Cooper’s) opened their beer and burger bar the Bad Apple a scant half block south of the venerable Jury’s, and while that institution attracts a decidedly different crowd, its burger is formidable and has been justly recognized as such for years. Now, with the Bad Apple shipping in a custom-ground beef mix from New York wholesale butcher Pat La Frieda, it’s difficult not to imagine a gauntlet has been thrown down between the generations gathering on each side of Lincoln Avenue....