For those who crave a walk on the theatrical wild side, Max Truax has become the go-to auteur—a sort of off-Loop Peter Greenaway. Since his Chicago debut three years ago, the 36-year-old Rockford native has made his mark by directing fever-dream productions informed by everything from theremins to Brecht heir Heiner Müller. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Last winter he reimagined Müller’s postmodern Hamletmachine as a chamber opera for Trap Door Theatre, blending the German playwright’s bleak meditations on power and destruction with a hypnotic score by Jonathan Guillen and a shape-shifting cast that worked multiple crossgender variations on Gertrude, Ophelia, and the melancholy Dane....

You might say Kevin Davis was born to write about criminal justice: his grandfather scored an interview with John Dillinger for the Chicago Daily Times in 1934. Davis grew up in Chicago, worked the crime beat for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel for ten years, and in 1996 published his first book, The Wrong Man, about a wrongful conviction. At that point, he realized he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in Florida in a comfortable but limited job....

After last year’s fisticuffs between catchers Michael Barrett and A.J. Pierzynski, it wouldn’t have been hard for the first round of this season’s interleague series between the Cubs and the White Sox to have a mellower vibe, and it did. With Sox fans more numerous than ever at Wrigley Field–a lingering effect of their 2005 championship and the Cubs’ persistent mediocrity, which has made tickets to their games easier to come by–the two tribes seemed willing to coexist....

During a single four-week period in the spring of 1991, four prostitutes vanished from the typically safe streets of Vienna. After the bodies of two of them turned up in nearby woods, naked, face down, and strangled with their own underwear, people in the Austrian capital, where prostitution is legal, began to fear it was harboring a serial killer. He immediately began doing book signings and guest spots on television talk shows (dressed in a signature white suit accented with a bright red rose or scarf) as well as working as a freelance print and broadcast journalist....

Recently relocated to one of Ukrainian Village’s busiest corners—Chicago just west of Damen—Study Hall offers a well-curated selection of clothing, accessories, books, decor, and cosmetics perfectly suited to a cool crowd. Owners Naoko Nagano and Malcolm Felder wanted to give customers a unique experience, so they decided to select a special theme each season. As of early spring, their products were centered around “summer leisure,” which is totally in tune with the adorable Marüshka collection they offer....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The location, on Roosevelt Road a couple of blocks east of Harlem, had been a hot dog stand called Parky’s since World War II, which Brendan O’Connor went to as a kid growing up in the area. It closed in 2001 and had stood dilapidated for a few years, he says, when he became interested in getting out of sales and carrying on the tradition of a neighborhood hot dog joint, but with a modern twist—”more contemporary cuisine, but good and not pretentious stuff....

Education & Recreation Inner Metamorphosis University Classes include silent sitting, tribal belly dance, “guided inner letting go,” and “flowering of the heart;” international retreats are also offered. a1418 W. Howard, 773-262-1468, lifesurfing.org, $10-$12 per class or $140 a month, free intro to meditation every Wednesday at 6:30 PM. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Moonwater Healing Center Classes in energy healing and meditation, flower essences, and pre- and postnatal yoga, as well as therapies ranging from craniosacral bodywork to massage....

The old reasons for not liking the Tribune were legion: it was too gray and fat and rich and powerful and conservative, and its heritage was dominated by a madman, the colonel, Robert R. McCormick. Besides, its coverage of the nation and world didn’t measure up to the New York Times and Washington Post. Then Sam Zell and Randy Michaels took over, and most of the top editors and a lot of very good writers flew the coop....

Edward Albee’s first play, The Zoo Story, is an acknowledged classic and one of the most-produced works in American theater. Written in 1958, it’s a pithy, intense, deceptively easy to mount one-act that college students and fledgling theater groups just love to cut their teeth on—though its dramatic and philosophical subtexts often elude even experienced artists. The quintessential two-men-on-a-park-bench drama, it depicts a confrontation between Jerry, a volatile young loner, and Peter, a middle-aged, buttoned-down book editor whose complacent, emotionally compartmentalized worldview is shattered by the experience....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » This week’s Variations on a Theme is a no-brainer: Kevin Warwick‘s cover story, in which he recounts the effects that caffeine had on him after having never been a regular coffee drinker, is the ideal opportunity to write about something that most of us ingest every day. Furthermore, it’s a blossoming niche industry, with a proliferation of high-end coffee shops and newfound techniques for brewing and crafting coffee beverages; coffee isn’t just a routine part of the morning, it’s a new boutique business....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I’m not sure when it went live, but the latest issue of the Chicago-based online zine Blastitude has a great piece by Derek Monypeny about a recent excursion to Morocco. Monypeny accompanied Hisham Mayet, one of the prime movers at Sublime Frequencies, to do some field recordings and research for future releases, and the piece provides a vivid picture of the kind of seat-of-the-pants guerrilla ethnomusicology the label thrives on....

Amelia’s Bar & Grill Amelia’s Bar & Grill occupies a lonely industrial corner a few blocks south of the storied stockyards’ gate, and nothing about the facade would indicate that anything more exotic than menudo lies within. But classics like lush quesadillas—made with chewy handmade tortillas, mild Oaxacan cheese and dark, funky huitlacoche—or chef Eusebio Garcia’s signature grilled salmon with green papaya, mango, and avocado creme fraiche share the page with Mediterranean fusion creations like goat cheese ravioli and pappardelle with shrimp, shiitakes, shallots, and Swiss chard in roasted garlic sauce....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The new South Loop bar Square One wins at least in the sweepstakes of salesmanship vs. quality: its website suggests a classy spot with a diverse selection of drink and an admirably limited menu to nibble off of. Well, the drinks are there—we chose beer from California’s Bear Republic off a list of respectable brews, wines, and intriguing-looking (though, at $11 a pop, pricy) cocktails, which lean largely on fruit juices....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Ignoring Rosenbloom’s cherry-picked examples, exaggerations and blatant misinformation, Bradley’s personal issues are indeed worth addressing. In 2004 he had a confrontation with a fan after having a water bottle thrown at him on the field, for which he received a five-game suspension. Already, he was being singled out as problematic–he also got four games for throwing a bag of balls onto the field, a penalty not usually seen for similar infractions....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » At 19 he cofounded Burkhart/Abrams, a now-famous consulting group that pioneered the AOR format, in particular the now-infamous “Superstars” subformat. Basically, he took the adventurous musical tastes of underground radio and applied the business principles of the moribund top-40 format (same link as above): “We were stuck with these underground deejays who thought they knew more than the listeners,” he says....

There are three street corners, each less than half a mile apart, bounding an otherwise quiet north-side neighborhood and forming an invisible triangle that attracts individuals with extraordinary powers of deferred gratification. The points on this Avondale Triangle are occupied by Hot Doug’s, Kuma’s Corner, and, most recently, Honey Butter Fried Chicken. All are purveyors of cheffy, embellished fast food with devoted supporters who are willing to line up and wait for sustenance that the cooks prepare in a fraction of the time it takes for a customer to secure a seat....

Ralph Rivera is a pretty unassuming-looking dude. Clean-cut, lean, and amiable, it’s hard to imagine him feverishly roaming humid, dank basements and ramshackle DIY spaces while screaming bloody murder into a microphone. But as the front man for now-defunct Chicago hardcore-punk champs Raw Nerve, Rivera has torn through countless sets filled with minute-long, thrashed-out ragers and sweaty-gross kids climbing over and bashing into one another. The added bonus following each set?...

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Studio Ghibli’s 2010 adaptation of the British children’s book The Borrowers pulses with Hayao Miyazaki’s feeling for childhood and nature (as usual, the intricate backgrounds invite you to marvel at every tree and flower), and it develops a surprising amount of suspense considering it all takes place around a single suburban home. The title character is a tiny girl who lives in secret behind the walls of said home with her doting parents, making do for food and goods by “borrowing” items from people....

Our nine picks for screenings Robert Frost: A Lover’s Quarrel With the World and Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer A rare art film from the blaxploitation era It’s been seven years since Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron released his last movie, but he’s stayed on filmgoers’ minds. A lot of that has to do with his strong, if short, filmography, which features a bona fide science-fiction classic (Children of Men), a beloved coming-of-age drama (Y Tu Mama Tambien), and the strongest installment of a multimillion-dollar studio franchise (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » On Saturday local experimental music presenter Lampo opens its three-concert spring season at the Graham Foundation with the Chicago debut of Matt Carlson of Portland, Oregon, who’s perhaps slightly better known as half of the duo Golden Retriever (and a former member of Parenthetical Girls). Late last year Carlson released a solo stunner, Particle Language (Draft), which collected seven mind-warping analog-synthesizer excursions, occasionally enhanced by electronically treated vocals....