Lead Story Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » According to reports in late December, many German women then in the last stages of pregnancy were turning to folk remedies in order to delay giving birth until January 1; a new government plan intended to improve Germany’s declining birthrate awards bonuses of up to $33,000 for each child born in 2007. Meanwhile, a New York Times columnist estimated from previous years’ figures that about 5,000 financially savvy pregnant women in the U....

The Silent Theatre Company’s wordless 2005 debut–Lulu, which made a big splash–drew on strong source material: Frank Wedekind’s expressionistic plays and a 1929 silent film inspired by them. For its second production the company turns to original material, Nell Voss and Nick DuFloth’s attempt at a film noir/graphic novel hybrid, and generates 15 minutes of content for a 90-minute production. Ostensibly the hardscrabble tale of a luckless detective tracking a lost heiress to a seedy 1929 speakeasy, it offers sketchily drawn, unconvincingly portrayed characters dallying in vague activities, often standing in self-conscious tableaux while a narrator reads their dialogue into a microphone....

Big-league sports can’t figure out what to do with their all-star games. The NFL’s Pro Bowl is a dog because when football players go through the motions the game is unwatchable. The NBA game gets by because top basketball players entertain when they showboat. The NHL seemed to change its all-star format annually before last year turning to a choose-up-sides approach straight from the playground. And baseball has tried to rescue its game by using it to decide which league gets home-field advantage in the World Series....

Q Ever since hearing you say on your podcast that all men use porn, I’ve had a burning question: what about us women? If all men get a pass to have this whole other sex life, which is (mostly) external to their partnerships and is sexually satisfying, then I think all women should have a pass as well. Ideally, it would be a pass to enjoy something universally arousing to all women, something that would sexually satisfy us, but it wouldn’t be something that turns most men on....

Trolling Craigslist for vintage motorcycles in any condition is one of the greatest and most enjoyable time sucks during a drudging workday—an hour or two on Bring a Trailer ain’t bad either—because some days you find a gem like this one: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Pristine bike, perfect sell. Only one cure for that: getting a fucking sick motorcycle. A 1971 Honda CB350....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Like the MOSTRA Brazilian Film Series, the Chicago Serbian Film Fest, which takes place this Friday through Sunday at the Muvico Theatres in Rosemont, is less of a cinematic event than a lesson in foreign history. Four of the six selections deal directly with Serbia’s past, and the two that don’t (the dramas Circles and State) center on the theme of atoning for past transgressions....

thursday28 Finch, Scary Kids Scaring Kids Metro, 5:30 PM Nobunny, Johnny & the Limelites Permanent Records, 6 PM F Marshall Tucker Band Beverly Arts Center, 8 PM Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » cGREG OSBY For more than 15 years, saxophonist and bandleader Greg Osby has consistently demonstrated a tech savviness rare in jazz—in the late 90s he cut a live album with a MiniDisc recorder, and he was posting free MP3s on his Web site long before it became the norm....

thursday27 Thursday27 Willie Pickens Friday28 A. Spencer Barefield QuartetEttesM.O.T.O. Saturday28 A Spencer Barefield QuartetBrunettesThe IntelligenceLa India CanelaM.O.T.O.Plankton Sunday30 La India CanelaSteel Panther Monday31 Steely Dan Tuesday1 Wednesday3 Free EnergyGordon Grdina Trio Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » ETTES There are lots of ways to skin the rock ‘n’ roll cat, many of them as complex and delicate as any surgery, but sometimes you just want to hear a band like the Ettes lay into it with a dull knife, screaming with glee....

thursday6 Thursday6 Slaid CleavesRudresh Mahanthappa’s Chicago Legacy Ensemble Featuring Bunky GreenWarlocks Friday7 Bobby Broom TrioDepeche ModeGrant Park OrchestraBrad PaisleyWarlocksZap Mama Saturday8 Bobby Broom TrioGrant Park OrchestraThe Low Anthem Sunday9 Bat for LashesDarren JohnstonMisfits Wednesday12 Darren Johnston RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA’S CHICAGO LEGACY ENSEMBLE FEATURING BUNKY GREEN Alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa is part of a new class of artists—alongside pianist Vijay Iyer and trumpeter Amir ElSaffar, both of whom have worked with him—who’ve found meaningful ways to combine jazz with the traditional music of their heritages....

Just last month former NEA director Bill Ivey was in town to warn leaders of nonprofit arts organizations about rampant overgrowth in their field. For the last couple years he’s been saying that the sector is out of step with the rest of the economy and probably can’t be sustained. Citing national figures from Americans for the Arts, he noted that their number has mushroomed in the last 40 years, from about 7,700 to more than 40,000....

The Chicago Reader is one of the few alternative newsweeklies in the nation that still publishes long-form film criticism, and over the past 40 years we’ve presented work by such talented writers as Noah Berlatsky, Fred Camper, Cliff Doerksen, Andrea Gronvall, J.R. Jones, Joshua Katzman, Dave Kehr, Patrick Z. McGavin, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Ben Sachs, Lee Sandlin, Hank Sartin, Bill Stamets, Elizabeth Tamny, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, and Albert Williams. The index below isn’t complete yet—we’ve made it only as far back as 1993—but we plan to keep adding to it until it is....

A first-person account from off the beaten track, as told to Anne Ford. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “It might be a name being repeated, or a single phrase. It might be, like, ‘You’re a slut.’ Or it might be advisory, like ‘Don’t go there.’ There’s a high percentage of people who hear voices and are completely nondistressed by them. Their voices tend to say things like ‘You’re looking really good today’ or ‘Great job....

The Trooper moved a million pints in its first eight weeks to become Robinsons’ fastest-selling beer ever; so far it’s reached more than 30 countries, and exports passed the million mark earlier this month. David Davies, managing director of Robinsons’ exporter, Sovereign Beverage, says the launch is “the most successful we have ever seen from the UK.” The Trooper’s dedicated website (ironmaidenbeer.com) and Twitter account (twitter.com/IronMaidenBeer) don’t mention Robinsons or even the beer’s proper name in their URLs—a pretty clear demonstration of the power of the Iron Maiden brand....

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/02/asian-carp-discussion-moves-to-washington.html Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Millions of pounds of Asian carp are already shipped off from Illinois to Europe and Asia, and the critters are fairly popular at ethnic markets around town. But Galvan wondered what would happen if some of his high profile clients got their hands on them and worked their magic. Could they make this an appetizing fish to larger market of eaters and put a dent in their numbers?...

Image from shutterstock.com Not to be confused with American Craft Beer Week—which started Monday and is actually confined to a single week—Chicago Craft Beer Week begins Thursday and continues for a week and a half. There’s just too much to cram into seven days, it seems. Really, there are enough events to fill a month or two. Just take a look at the schedule—it’s completely overwhelming. Each day features dozens of events, ranging from discounts to special tappings to all-out festivals....

Be good, kiddies! Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Earlier that month, on St. Nikolaus Day, children of goodwill sprang from their beds and rushed to the empty shoe they’d placed outside the night before. Inside, they’d discover small gifts and treats left for them by St. Nikolaus, and joy would fill the air. Disobedient children, however, awoke to the shakes and the shivers. In their shoes awaited switches, with which their parents would spank them....

Stumbling stargazers of the first order, the local trio ZELIENOPLE are not just gifted but prolific, with five releases in the past year or so, each one better than the last. If they ever toured, I imagine a lot more people would be paying attention to them. This is a release party for their latest, His/Hers: five long, scintillating tracks that blend dreamy drone folk a la Charalambides or Windy & Carl with clanging, pungent fuzz freakouts that sound like Acid Mothers Temple in a rare focused moment....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Chris Cohen is mostly a drummer, but over the years he’s proved himself adept at many instruments in numerous contexts. He’s still probably best known for his 2001-’06 stint with Bay Area art-pop band Deerhoof, who have a show at Schubas on September 22; he played guitar and sometimes bass on killer albums such as Apple O, Milk Man, and Runners Four....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » This week Black Milk released his new album, No Poison, No Paradise, and since it came out I haven’t taken “Black Sabbath” out of rotation. The song is Black Milk at his darkest—drenching drum claps in reverb, letting low- and high-end synths wander in and out of minor keys. Flint native Tone Trezure haunts the song with his crooning guest vocals, lamenting in harmony with himself, “Stop, you can’t find your way in the dark....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Yes, it’s too bad the Chinese consul died back in season four when Jack Bauer led a team that invaded the inviolate space of the Chinese consulate in LA. But he was kidnapping the one man who could stop an atom bomb from wiping out LA, for God’s sake, and the bomb didn’t go off; in the balance I’d say China’s diplomatic corps in LA came out miles ahead....